


Super Solider Dinner

by Annabellee86



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Constipation, Crying Bucky Barnes, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemas, Feeding Kink, Flashbacks, Food Issues, Good Guy Tony, Good Guy Tony Stark, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Memory Loss, Men Crying, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sickfic, Steve Rogers Feels, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 69,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9085204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabellee86/pseuds/Annabellee86
Summary: For seventy years Bucky hadn't had more than a few bites of real food. After he comes to the tower Steve just wants to take care of him. To bad for Bucky, Steve thinks Super Solider sized meals are the way to show love. Poor Bucky's stomach can't take eating like that. Or at all really. Bucky just doesn't know how to tell Steve that he's not making things better for him. He's just making Bucky sick.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic so please be kind. This is also not going to be a happy fluffy bunny story. There are quite a few very graphic rape flashbacks. There is also a great deal of Bucky being graphically ill. I will warn on the chapters with actual rape flashbacks, but if you aren't okay with reading them you probably shouldn't read this fic. It is very graphic.
> 
> There are parts of this story that also have a real eating disorder feel to them. It wasn't my intention. It does however have a real eating disorder feel. So I wanted to warn for it. Please heed the tags. The things I tagged for aren't going to be an off handed mention. I intended for this to be dark and graphic so that is what I wrote. 
> 
> PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS!!!!

Bucky had been away from Hydra for two months when Steve found him. Bucky knew that going to the Smithsonian was a terrible risk. It was that going shook loose the memories of Bucky's life before Hydra Like nothing else. He could remember Steve. It was only bits n pieces here and there. He remembered what they had shared. Bucky remembered parts from when they were teens. When clinging to each other was warmth and comfort in a tiny Brooklyn apartment. Or when they were huddled together in a tent in a war zone. He remembers Steve sitting in his arms when his mother died. Being the only one who Steve would let in his apartment or even speak too after she died. 

He had been standing in the exhibit looking at the life size picture of the Howling Commandos. (He could remember the day that it had been taken. Walking away from the Hydra based. He could remember the things that Zola had done. Being there in the holding cell waiting to be taken. He remembered the fear.) That’s when he felt a massive hand clap down on his shoulder. He grabbed the hand and bent the index finger back to the back of the hand, He heard a satisfying crack as he did. 

As soon as he looked to see if Brock Rumor or one of the other Strike teams had been the one to find him, he saw the calm, sad, resigned look on Steve's face. The look that seemed to say. I am sorry and please don’t hurt me in a way that will draw attention to us. At least not attention that I can’t charm my way out of. He had been mortified by his reaction, but not enough to let go of Steve's finger. All the years with Hydra and in the war were too ingrained in him. 

He spun on his heel and retreated out of the Smithsonian. He tried to lose Steve without running. Bucky knew that running would draw attention to himself. And more than he needed to get away from Steve he needed to not end up on the evening news more. He knew it was futile to try to get away. Steve was just as quick and though not as well trained as he was Steve had way more knowledge of the layout of New York than he had managed to get in his two months of freedom. He rushed down the steps toward the street he felt that massive hand on his shoulder again. It wasn’t truly trying to physically stop him but strong enough to make the point clear that Steve desperately wanted him to stop. 

Spinning on his heel to face Steve. “What do you want” he did his best not yell as he threw Steve’s hand off him. Steve looked abashed and blanched away. The sad desperate look in Steve's eyes said everything that Bucky knew Steve would never be able to say to him in words. That much Bucky was sure had not changed in seventy years. Steve had not become able to talk about his feelings. Something in his memory's said that that was never going to change. 

“You look good” Steve stumbled through as he looked at Bucky. Steve could tell by the look in Bucky’s eyes that he recognized him in a way he hadn’t on the helicarrier. He may not have remembered all the stolen kisses and long nights laying in Steve’s tiny little Brooklyn apartment talking, but Bucky knew him. He knew there was a history and knew that Steve had once mattered to him. “How have you been?” Steve asked like he was talking to a friend he saw just last week. He just didn’t know how to talk to Bucky. He just wanted Bucky to come back with him to the tower. 

“What do you want?” Bucky spat with more venom than he had intended, but didn’t really want to correct. “I want you to come home with me.” Steve said letting some desperation seep into his voice. “I want you to be safe.” “How will I be safe?” Bucky hissed. “Hydra will never stop looking for me. I know you are good Captain America but no one is as good as all of Hydra.” “I live in Stark Tower. Tony’s security is nothing to laugh at. No one would be able to get past his security short of an all out assault.” Steve wheedled. That pleading look back in his eyes. “I don’t think that Tony would stand for me being in his home.” Bucky said with an almost sad look in his eyes. “Then we will get our own place. Please Bucky I miss you.” Steve almost whined reaching out to touch Bucky in a way that once would have been nothing but now Bucky flinched away. Steve snatched his hand away as if it had been burned. 

They stood there on the steps just staring at one another waiting. Bucky gave the slightest nod of his head and stalked off. Bucky knew where the tower was. He had seen the TV commercials and heard the radio adds saying that he could call or come to the tower. They had promised safety and help. He had even gone to the tower a few times. 

Steve was so shocked and a little dazed it took a minute to follow after him. Jogging to catch up. “My car is this way.” he said trying not to sound like a giddy child. Bucky slowed and allowed Steve to lead the way to his car. 

As Bucky saw the ridiculous sports car that couldn't have drawn more attention to itself if it had tried, he smirked. “Enjoying being the hero of the world are we?” For just a moment Steve could see the charming cocky boy he had grown up with and loved. The man he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. The kid who had gone off to war all those years ago.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
The ride to Stark Tower had been uneventful. Mostly passed in silence. The world whizzing by at a rate that Bucky wasn’t used to. He had not really driven much in seventy years, and even before the war neither one of them had come from families who could have afforded a car. Even in the war it was mostly slow going in jeeps on dirt roads. Now this speed and the feel of this car was definitely something that Bucky enjoyed, and looked forward to enjoying again. He only hoped that next time he would be the one driving. He knew that was a futile hope. Steve would trust him he was sure, but he would be too terrified that he would split to let him drive for quite some time, if ever. 

Steve darted in and out of traffic just like a New York City cabbie. He definitely wasn’t the kid Bucky remembered. It seemed that the seventy years had not left Steve unfazed either. 

Far too soon for Bucky’s liking, they were pulling into the huge garage that had dozens of hundred thousand dollar sports car and motorcycle. Sure Bucky had seen cars and trucks and motorcycles of this quality on missions before. But they had belonged to people he didn't know. The thought that the kid he knew from Brooklyn had access to them was still jarring. 

He was nowhere near the cocksure kid from Brooklyn he had once been, but there were some things that he would just never get over. They had grown up in the depression. A time when just having a roof over your head, heat, and food were luxuries. Luxuries that so many didn’t have. Even to this day Bucky found it hard to comprehend such wealth. 

“We’re here!” Steve said as he opened his door. Bucky had a feeling that this was going to be a fubar situation. He was pretty sure that it was going to end with him being on the run from yet another group of people who wanted him contained or put down. “Before he could hurt anyone or out there terrible deeds” He muttered to himself as he went to say that this was a terrible idea. He wanted to tell Steve he should just get out of the car and run away, this was pointless but that’s when he saw Steve’s face. Bucky could see the hope and joy that Steve was trying so hard to hide. He figured he would let Steve have his moment before Stark told Steve that Bucky wasn’t welcome in his home. He just hoped he would be able to get out before he was shot, or worse, captured. He didn’t want to have to fight the Avengers again. 

Jarvis had of course picked Steve and Bucky up as soon as they were out of the Smithsonian, and had alerted Stark and the rest of the Avengers of Bucky and Steve's arrival. Just as Steve led the way towards the door to the tower it burst open, Iron Man leading the way through the door, the rest of the Avengers behind him. Steve rushed to get between Bucky and Iron Man, hoping in vain to defuse the situation. 

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Tony shouted as he flew forward toward Bucky. Bucky snarled and crouched into a fighting stance his metal arm whirring to life as he flexed his hand. This just seemed to make the situation go from terrible to truly fucked as the rest of the Avengers went from protectively watchful to all-out battle ready.

“Calm down! Would everyone just CALM THE FUCK DOWN?” Steve said in his Captain America voice. The Avengers all took notice when he used that voice. It was his field voice. They were all too well attuned to working in the field with him to not follow orders when they were given in that voice. The shocking thing was so did Bucky. Bucky didn’t even realize that he was following the order until he was following it. Apparently the years he had spent with Steve and the Commandos, following him into battle had left him hard-wired to follow that voice without question. 

“Now that we aren’t going to imminently kill one another why don’t we discuss Bucky being here?” Steve said, leaving no questioning in his voice. He was still using his field voice. He would be obeyed God damn it! They would at least listen to what he had to say.

“HOW DARE YOU BRING THAT THING HERE?” Tony yelled. Bucky immediately fell back into his fighting stance. 

“Tony!” Steve barked back. “He isn’t a danger anymore,” Steve lied, knowing full well that he was still absolutely a threat. Steve truly believed that Bucky wouldn’t hurt them on purpose. He had spent enough time around Sam, and his patience, and soldiers he knew back in the war to know that Bucky might hurt them. That he definitely could hurt them. But he still felt like it wouldn’t be on purpose. Steve had to believe in his friend. He just had to make them see that he was right.  
“Let's go inside and talk about his.” Steve barked still not leaving room for debate. 

“Only if we stick it in a room and let Jarvis monitor it . If he tries to escape or hurt us, the building’s defensive system will be able to stop him with no issue!” Tony snarked. 

Steve desperately didn't didn’t want to do that. He did see the logic in what Tony was saying. He just questioned that after he did that to Bucky, whether Bucky would be able to ever trust him. He knew Bucky was going to have a hard enough time trusting him as it was. He certainly didn't want to make it worse.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They took him to the Hulk’s smash room. It was the most sturdy room in the tower. There were built-in defense systems. Just in case they were needed. No one wanted to admit that the Hulk was a threat, but he could be. And they had planned that room accordingly. It had all the things that The Hulk needed to work out his aggression, but it also had a way to contain him if necessary.

Tony smiled as he flew down the hall to the smash room. He looked gleeful as he was showing Bucky in and telling Jarvis "Stop any threat with extreme prejudice.” 

“Tony!” Steve scolded. The glee lessened but Steve didn’t tell Jarvis any differently. Bucky just looked resigned as he walked in and sat down on a tractor tire. He watched as they shut the door. He could hear the magnetic lock slide home as the door shut. There was no room for error there. No forgetting to lock the door so that he could escape. The lock was automatic. Bucky didn't think that he could get out of this room if they decided to keep him here. If the room had truly been built for the Hulk in a rage there was no way that Bucky could break his way out. Bucky thought he might be able to go up and through the ceiling. The hulk was a break-everything-to-escape kind of guy. Bucky had more options than that but he wasn't super optimistic about it. He had been given several programming sessions about the Avengers and The Hulk was not something to be messed with. He figured that the defense system wouldn’t let him get halfway up the wall before it took him out. 

Steve marched to the conference room. He left without saying a word. He just turned and stalked off down the hall. Steve had no doubt that the team would follow him. There was no way he would want Bucky to hear what the Avengers had to say. Steve knew they would come around eventually, but having Bucky overhear them would just make it harder for him to accept them when they came around. And Steve knew it was going to take a lot before Bucky would be able to trust them even in the slightest. Steve couldn’t bare to make it worse. So he led the way to the sleek modern public conference room used for Stark Industry meetings. It was all glass and metal. All perfect lines and harsh angles. There of course was an Avengers conference room up on the floors where the team lived. He wanted to be as far away from Bucky as possible. The public conference room was on the main floor down just off the lobby. It was 26 floors below the smash room, and not even Steve could hear that far. 

Steve strode in and sat harshly into the white leather and metal rolling office chair that was on the far side by the window. He desperately wanted to remain standing or at least take the seat at the head of the table. Those were the places he would have gone for an Avengers’ briefing for this team meeting he had to force himself to not try to be the leader but be their equal. If he had taken the Alpha male approach he would have been in a better position to lead the meeting, but he knew that most of the team would be more likely to balk if they felt like they had no say in the decision. He knew if he bulldozed them it would just make things worse.

Tony stepped out of the suit once he was in the room, but he hadn’t gone to the lab to take it off. Even though they had to pass the lab floor on their way down. Making it clear he was still battle ready even if he wanted to be more comfortable. Tony had Jarvis ask Pepper to meet them in the conference room. This discussion unlike other Avenger business did directly involve her since she, too, lived in the tower. 

Pepper walked glided into the conference room as beautiful and calm as she always looked. Of course being with Tony meant that having a Hydra-trained assassin living in her home wouldn’t even make the scariest thing to happen this month let alone ever. 

The rest of the Avengers took seats around the conference table.

“I don’t want him here,” Tony announced at least managing to sound calm. No one believed he was calm, but at least he was acting like it. “I don’t want him around Pepper.” Before he had a chance to say anything else Pepper spoke up. “I may not be an Avenger, but I am not a child who needs a big strong man to protect her. I do see that he is a threat, but Jarvis showed me the footage and he didn’t seem to be acting as though he means us imminent harm.” 

Tony started to say something, but was cut off with a look from Pepper that said “I will end if you if you try to pull that macho crap again.”

Natasha spoke up, “I know he was your friend, but Steve, the person you knew is gone. He has been gone for seventy years. I know you want him back, but that may never be a possibility;and him being a threat aside, if you try to force him back into the role of the friend you had seventy years ago it will just harm him. Please tell me you understand that? That being told him being here may be the safest place for him. Hydra won’t be able to get him back if he is with us. Hydra losing their Fist has weakened what was left of them. They have been counting on him. They have been using him for too long to have much of a back up plan without him. At least for the skills and tools he had. I am not saying we welcome him into our home with open arms, but with precautions and monitoring it is the best place for him and keeping him from Hydra and other governments who want him for there own reasons. 

Steve knew Natasha was right. He was still thinking of the cocky kid Bucky was in high school and trying to visualize him in the man who was currently sitting in the smash room upstairs. He missed his friend and lover. He knew that he couldn't just walk back into the life they had before, but he wanted that back and it was hard not to see the cocky man he knew in the Soldier that was here now. 

Clink spoke up next. “We all know that I was less than social when I joined Shield. I was a threat to everyone including myself. It took time, but I have gotten better. I see the threat in him. I understand that we have to protect ourselves and him. Some of you know what it's like to be on the run, but most of you don't. It will just make him more of a threat. He’s like a feral kitten. The longer he’s out of Hydra’s hands without people around him who he can trust and who care about him, the more aggressive he will become.”

 

“We all know that the Other Guy is a very real threat. He could hurt any of you not even by meaning to. If he is welcome here I don’t see why we can’t at least try to welcome Bucky,” Bruce said with a look of sad resignation. 

Steve spoke up again,“I am not stupid, and I am not as naive as you all think that I am. I know he could kill us without even breaking a sweat. I know that as well as every one of you. I also know Natasha could as well. Clint could, even without his bow he’s a formidable opponent. The Other Guy could. Hell even Bruce could. Hell, Bruce could cook up some bio weapon and wipe out the eastern seaboard. And yes, even you Tony could kill us with very little effort. You could do it by accident just as easily as you could if you were trying. None of us can throw stones." 

Sam waited for everyone to say their piece before he spoke. “I have spent a great part of my adult life taking care of vets who came back changed after what they saw and did in service to their country. Bucky is the longest surviving POW in the world. Bucky has been used as weapon. Against his will. He has had his mind wiped and reprogrammed for seventy years. They did God knows what else to him. He needs to be here, that is absolutely correct, but Steve, he could very much be a threat to any of us, and especially you. We have no idea how much of his programming is still intact, The day Tiskeliton fell he had orders to kill you specifically, as well as all of us. We need to be careful. 

“I won’t write off a vet for any reason regardless of his connection to you. I will do anything I can to help him get all the services he is entitled to through the Army, but he needs us. There is no one else who is equipped to handle him. The US government wants him and not even they can hold him if he wants out. Steve how many times have they tried to force you to submit to them. You are a hero. You are a beloved icon. He's an assassin who is wanted in what, 36 countries? They will do whatever is necessary to try and figure out how his serum works and how he was programmed. 

“The people in this country won't care and they will let the government do whatever they want to him. We have to keep him out of their hands. I know you don't want to hear it, but regardless we need some clear rules and guidelines. We have to be smart.”

“What would you suggest?” Steve asked.

“I think we need to have him supervised when he is off his floor. We need to have Jarvis keep him on his floor unless there is someone else with him. He shouldn't go anywhere un-escorted. At least for a few days. Jarvis needs to monitor him at all times even when he sleeps and showers. I don’t want to treat a vet this way any more than you want your friend to be treated this way. We just have to know if he is still acting under his programming to kill us. We need to not give him access to weapons of any kind. It will be bad enough if he is unarmed, let alone have weapons,” Sam explained. 

“He can stay here but only if you allow Jarvis to monitor him, and we leave the order that if Jarvis believes him to be a threat he will stop him regardless of the outcome to Mr. Barnes.” Tony said.

Steve sighed. He knew that was the best he was going to get out of them until they could see that Bucky wasn’t going to slit their throats in their sleep. 

“If that’s all, I am going to go get him settled in on my floor,” Steve said as he stood and walked out of the room fast enough to not leave room for anyone to try and talk to him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot of eating disorder undertones. It's not intended to be written as an eating disorder fic but it comes across that way. Please heed the warnings.

Steve’s walk was a little more march like then he had intended. As much as he wanted to, he wasn’t able to stop himself from doing it as he walked to the elevators. Blessed is getting in and getting the door shut before anyone was able to join him for the ride up to get Bucky. 

Steve rode the elevator to the 26th floor and got off. Walking into the smash room to get Bucky. He unlocked the door and saw Bucky sitting in the same place he had been when he had left him there. Bucky looked resigned as he waited for Steve or one of the others to come and tell him that they weren’t letting him out. 

By the look on Steve’s face, Bucky honestly wasn’t sure what the outcome was. Steve looked frustrated and resigned at the same time. Then Steve beamed at him and said “Let me show you to our floor.” Bucky didn’t think that Steve knew he had seen him before he had smiled. 

Steve led Bucky out of the room and down to the elevator. “Jarvis I’m going to my floor, don’t stop before then,” Steve said offhandedly as they turned around to face the door. 

As they got to their floor Steve started to explain how things would work. “One of the stipulations is that you are on the same floor with me. You also will not have access to any other floor unless escorted there for a while. The elevator won’t respond to you, and the door to the stairs will remain locked unless there is an emergency. Jarvis the AI that runs this building will also be monitoring you at all times.” 

“Until they think I am not going to kill them.” Bucky said a with a little more anger than he had honestly realized he had about the situation. 

Steve just looked abashed and said “Let's go see our place.”

They took the elevator, two floors down to the floor, he would be sharing with Steve. As they got off the elevator, he noticed that where the rest of the building he had seen screamed modern efficiency, his floor screamed home.

It had WWII-era furniture. Bucky didn’t doubt they were real antiques not reproductions. There was a blue velvet couch with a rounded back and comfy tufts. It had a back that was all one piece into the arms. It looked tiny compared to Steve. Bucky thought Steve might break it if he sat down too hard. There were these red chairs that looked like something that his I would have loved. The backs of the chairs went up like a spiral staircase. They were velvet and had fringe on the bottom. Bucky thought they looked ridiculous. He thought they looked like they would be terribly uncomfortable. 

There was art on the walls. Big beautiful oil paintings. Flowers in a pond. Bucky felt like the name has been just barely out of reach. Like he had spent hours with Steve looks at that very painting, but he couldn’t remember where or when or the name of it. 

There were all the conveniences of a modern home-- a TV as big as a wall. What Bucky could only guess where game systems, and DVD players or something. 

There were huge speakers under the TV and over by the wall behind the couch. Bucky couldn’t help but stand in awe as he took it all in. 

When Bucky’s eyes stopped on the TV, Steve said that he was welcome to watch it any time and that he would show him how to use it. “Till I show you how to use it, just ask Jarvis if you want to watch anything. I think for the first 3 months I wasn’t able to get the damn thing turned on or able to find what I wanted. Once I did something and had to have Tony come fix it for me. Not even Jarvis could get it fixed.” Steve smiled and looked shamed faced. 

There was a bookshelf full of video games and two walls of bookshelves full of movies. They were lined up and down the wall on both sides of the window on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Bucky tried to do the math of how many movies were those gleaming hand-polished shelves. He was so scattered from everything that was going on that he couldn’t really keep track to do it. 

There was a huge kitchen with a dining table right in it. The table matched the rest of the house in that it was delicate and from another time. A lifetime ago. There was no formal dining room anywhere in sight. It was an eat-in kitchen just like I use to have, where the kids would pile around and have dinner with her and pa. 

As Bucky wandered towards the kitchen, Steve told him to just tell Jarvis if there were things that they didn’t have that he wanted. “Jarvis has a standing order for me and keeps the things that I use on hand, but you can just ask him and he will either get them for a special meal or add them to the standing order. You just need to speak out loud in any room in the tower and Jarvis will hear you. Just tell him what you want and if you want it kept in the house or just for a one time thing. If you can’t think of anything you want right now just keep it in mind for later when you have had a chance to try other things. The food Buck, you won’t believe what there is in this century to eat! Things we never would have dreamed of. You can get fruit from around the world at the store. It’s just there.” Steve said with awe in his voice.

“There is a communal kitchen, one floor up. I will take you up there tomorrow. We try to eat a family style meal at least once a week and there are always goodies up there,” Steve explained as he surveyed the kitchen. 

The thought of actual food made Bucky’s stomach knot up and start cramping. It also made it grow.

“As soon as I show you around I will order us some pizza. There's this great place not far from here that delivers. I generally eat two larges. We can order in a few minutes,” Steve mentioned not even thinking as he said it. 

But Bucky was thinking he was trying not to look worried and either it was working or Steve was oblivious to the terror he was feeling at the thought of eating solid food. Let alone two large pizzas. Bucky hadn’t had solid food in almost seventy years. They fed him meal replacement shakes when he was out of Cryo and via IV when he was in Cryo. He had tried a few times when he was first away from Hydra to eat real food, but it just left him sick and hurting, so he had stuck to those Ensure shakes and smoothies. He could manage soup if it was mostly broth, but only small amounts. He had managed to get to the point where he could manage fruit, some salad if it was just iceberg lettuce, and tiny amounts of fruit. He was almost always hungry, but at least he wasn’t sick all the time. 

As they went through the living room they passed a room with an open door. It had a huge desk. A big solid wood thing that looked like Steve could jump up and down on it, and it wouldn’t be harmed in any way. It was beautiful in its own way. It had a massive computer on it. Bucky had been trained on computers and smartphones since they became commonplace. Hydra hadn’t wanted to draw attention to him for being a young man who couldn’t make a call or type an email. 

As Bucky stepped inside the room, he noticed that the whole side of the room was floor to ceiling bookshelves, and knowing Steve, he had read every one or was working his way through them. Bucky could tell by looking at them that some were old classics, leather-bound and some had gilded edges. He could smell the musty old smell. It smelled like the library from when they were kids. He and Steve had spent many days there when it was too cold for Steve to be outside. There were also some new books that were interspersed that had shiny, colorful covers on them. 

“You can come in here whenever you want and get books or use the computer. I will have Jarvis get you your own computer tomorrow, but you can always use mine.” Steve said as if he wasn’t an enemy assassin who not two and a half months ago was trying to kill him and all his friends. 

It didn’t matter that there was a huge TV and every movie he could imagine in the next room. Steve was still that kid with asthma reading in his tiny apartment because he couldn’t go out in the cold. Well, Bucky thought, no asthma anymore. But Steve would still be happy to be sitting on the couch with a good book. Bucky could just picture lazy Sundays. Steve with old music playing quietly in the background while he sat and read in a comfy chair. 

They walked down the hall and Steve opened a door to the biggest bedroom Bucky had ever seen. He could have fit his whole apartment from Brooklyn in that room alone. There was a ridiculous bed, but Bucky had seen beds that big before. He thought, slamming his mind off from that thought before it overwhelmed him. Bucky followed Steve into the room. Trying to hide his fear. Steve isn’t them. He won’t do that. He chanted in his mind. Trying to will his face not to betray him. 

There was a TV on the wall opposite the bed. The bed was a huge thing with green building and a throw that looked so soft. The bedside tables had reading lamps on both of them. Like Steve had a person who slept over. Or Bucky thought it was just whoever set up the room being prepared. He hoped somewhat bitterly.

The connecting bathroom was proportionally ridiculous to the bedroom. It had what looked like a mile of counter and two sinks. The shower looked big enough for four people to shower in and still have room. The bathtub looked like it could fit at least that many. There was another door in the bathroom. When Steve opened it there was a toilet and this toilet shaped thing that had knobs on it like a bathtub. Bucky didn’t recognize what it was. Steve didn’t offer any answers about what it was and gave Bucky a minute and then walked out like Bucky was a puppy and Steve expected him to follow. 

They had to walk back across the apartment to get to Bucky’s room. It was down a short hall the same as Steve’s. Although the rooms looked identical in size and fixtures, the decor was very different. Where Steve’s room had been old and very much in the style of the rest of the furniture in the apartment. This room looked like it had been decorated by the same person who did the lobby. All metal and glass. Square and modern. White everything but a red blanket on the foot of the bed and lime green throw pillows. The carpet and bedding--everything was white. Bucky thought a little sadly looking at it with all its boring efficiency

“We can get you different stuff if you don’t like the furniture or linens,” Steve said nervously. Bucky just nodded as he stared at the bed. He was trying to calm the memories of beds like that. Big beds that fit half a dozen people. Beds like that with him tied to them. Beds like that with nameless, faceless people. Even if the people had been faceless, the pain was not blurry and barely remembered. The pain of those nights was one of the first things he had remembered. One of the only clear and crisp memories he had. 

He felt himself breathe deeply and then he was back in this sterile, boring room in Stark Tower. He just hoped that he’d not drawn attention to himself. He didn't want Steve to know about all the times he had performed his secondary function. 

Bucky couldn’t bear his oldest friend, his lover, to know that he was so used and dirty. He didn’t want him to know how he had been forced to perform his secondary function. 

Steve had seen the look on Bucky's face, but he thought it was just hunger and stress. At least he hoped that was what it was. He didn’t want to think about what else would have made Bucky look like that while looking at a bed. 

“Let's order pizza.” Steve said as he turned and walked back to the living room. Steve thought the mention of food would get Bucky to settle down and enjoy his first night in Stark Tower. He could not have been more wrong. 

The mention of food only made Bucky more stressed. His stomach was now actively rolling at the thought of the heavy greasy food. He sat on one of the ugly red chairs, the one that was off to the side of the couch. He wasn’t wrong when he thought it would be uncomfortable. It was beyond uncomfortable. He was as far away from Steve as he could get without leaving the room. 

Steve pulled out his phone and started talking about the pizza and what he wanted on his pizza. Bucky was desperately trying to tune him out without getting lost as to what was going on. “I am getting one large with ham, chicken, mushrooms, onions, and tomatoes. The other one I am going to go classic and get pepperoni. What about you?” Steve asked.

Bucky was barley following that he was being asked a question. Bucky mumbled “I will have the same. Sounds great.” As he stared off into space trying not to panic at the thought of eating that much food. 

On a good day Bucky could eat soup with small amounts of vegetables and little bits of meat. Or a salad that was small and didn’t have anything but lettuce. And fruit, but only tiny amounts of fruit. He had read somewhere that lettuce was just water anyway. But that was the most he could eat and even that sometimes made his stomach rebel. His stomach seemed to be the most apt to rebel when he was stressed or upset. Check and check Bucky thought as he waited.

Steve must have tried to talk to him at some point because the next thing Bucky knew Steve was switching on the TV and babbling, till the food gets here. I know how I get when I haven’t eaten in awhile. That super soldier metabolism is brutal. 

Bucky wasn’t sure how long it was till Jarvis’ disembodied voice was saying that their food was there. Steve said okay and left to go get it from the lobby. Bucky tried to take a few deep breaths. ‘It won’t be that bad. You can do it,’ he said to himself as he went to the kitchen to try and be useful and find plates. 

He did manage to find them. As well as glasses and apple juice in the fridge. He had poured the juice and gotten the plates out before Steve was back. Steve walked in with what would have been enough for 10 normal people. The boxes were huge! Bucky took another deep breath, grabbing the drinks and plates and following Steve into the living room. 

Steve set the boxes out and looked at what pizza was what. It wasn’t hard since they had gotten the same thing. He grabbed the plates Bucky had brought and dished up the pizza. He put 3 huge slices on each plate and handed one to Bucky. 

“Just let me know when you need more and I’ll get you more.” Steve said as he sat down and unpaused whatever was on the TV. 

Bucky hadn’t even noticed that it wasn’t playing while Steve was gone. Bucky tried not to panic as he put the first bit into his mouth. It tasted amazing. All cheesy and hot. The toppings were so much better than when he was a kid. He had only had pizza once in awhile and always cheese or pepperoni--nothing too imaginative. 

This tasted so good! He ate the first slice quickly. It was so good to have food that tasted so rich. But as Bucky finished the first slice he felt his stomach start to roll. He just picked up the next slice. He thought about it as a mission. He just ate at the same pace Steve did. As soon as Steve finished, Bucky was ready for more. He handed his plate to Steve. Steve took three more slices--this time pepperoni and handed the plate back to Bucky.

“You must have been starving,” Steve pronounced. . Bucky just nodded, eating another bite. 

That’s how it went for the rest of the meal. Bucky didn’t even realize that the boxes were empty until Steve took his plate and didn’t give it back.

Bucky finally looked up as Steve noted, “Isn’t that pizza place amazin. I always tend to eat more than I should when I order from there.” 

‘Well great,’ Bucky thought, ‘not only did I eat real food and way more than a normal person would eat. I ate more than Steve normally eats.’

Bucky could feel his stomach getting madder and madder as he sat watching something with Steve. All Bucky wanted to do was go to the bathroom and try to get the fucking pizza up. Vomiting was the least he could do to make it somewhat better later when his body did what it normally did, and decided it had had enough of that nonsense. It would void everything in his body with extreme force and pain. Best case scenario would be that Bucky would be up all night running back and forth to the bathroom. All he wanted to do was try to make it better if he could. But every time he was going to excuse himself to go to bed, he would look over at Steve and see his pleased smile as he watched whatever bullshit was on the TV. Bucky didn’t have the heart to ruin what for Steve had to be an amazing day. 

At eleven when the news came on, Steve stood up and said,“well goodnight. I am off to bed. Do you need me to get you anything or show you where anything is?” 

Bucky just shook his head and turned to walk to his room. He walked calmly and slowly till he got in the bedroom and had the door shut. As soon as the door, shut he rushed to the bathroom.


	4. Chapter 4

Bucky all but ran to the bathroom to try and get as much of the pizza as he could up. He not only felt sick but he felt overfull. He knew that throwing up at this point was too little too late, but he had to try. His guts were churning hard and constantly. He only hoped he could get some of the pizza up before it started coming out the other end. 

He grabbed a towel and threw it on the floor and dropped to his knees flipping the seat up as he went. He pulled his hair back into a bun so he didn’t get anything on it. Then he shoved his fingers down his throat. All the years with Hydra and he didn’t really have a gag reflex anymore. 

As Bucky shoved his fingers in his throat he tried not to think of the other things that had been shoved into his mouth and down his throat over the last seventy years. He got up and started looking in the cabinets for something longer and found a toothbrush. He shoved that into his mouth and still couldn’t get his body to cooperate and gag. As he sat there on his knees he couldn’t help thinking about another bathroom with Pierce 

The Soldier was on his knees on the cold tile of the bathroom. Completly naked. They had learned a long time ago to power off his arm so he was less likely to kill them when they used him for his secondary purpose. The weight of his arm just made his back ache as he knelt there. Pierce had made him strip slowly and dance around the bedroom while he watched. Once the Asset was naked and Pierce had had his fun with that game Pierce had sent the Soldier to the bathroom to wait. The Soldier knew even though he didn’t know how he knew that he needed to kneel and lower his head while he waited. The Asset had counted the seconds since he was sent in here to wait. It had been fifty seven minutes and twenty six seconds since he had knelt. Pierce had wanted to use his mouth before the shower. Pierce always wanted to use his mouth before he used the rest of the Soldier. This was one of the things he didn’t know how he knew just that he knew. 

When Pierce walked into the bathroom, he was naked and walked over to the toilet and sat down on the lid. The Asset knew to move so he was in front of Pierce. Pierce grabbed his hair and pulled him down onto his cock. He didn't let the Asset adjust to having a cock down his throat, he just started fucking him hard. Holding his head down so that his cock was as far down his throat as possible. 

Bucky didn’t even notice that he was throwing up until he tasted the acid. 

Once his body started gagging it didn’t stop till long after there was nothing coming up. His stomach ached and rolled and cramped. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep much tonight as bad as his stomach was hurting. And he knew that what little sleep he managed to get would be plagued with nightmares. As he stood, he felt the cramps start to worsen and he debated if getting into bed was worth the effort. 

But he wanted to try and catch at least some sleep before his stomach rebelled again. He stood flushing the toilet as he went and grabbed the towel and set it aside. For later. Bucky knew that sometimes his stomach wanted to purge from the top as well as the bottom when he ate real food and he had never eaten anywhere near that much or that rich of food before. 

He started brushing his teeth and as he was brushing he started to feel the urge to go begin to build. He brushed faster, but the urge just got worse, the cramps becoming unbearable. He just wanted the taste of acid and half digested food out of his mouth before he was sitting for god knew how long unable to move. As he spit he knew there was no waiting and he spun to get to the toilet, knowing he had waited too long and praying that he would be able to get across the ridiculous length of the bathroom to the toilet before he disgraced himself and shit himself like a baby. He managed to get on the toilet before he started shitting, but just barely. It was close. 

It felt like his is whole body was cramping; trying to get the fucking pizza out. He was doubled over grunting and panting with every new wave. He wasn’t sure if anything moved through the human body this fast. He didn’t really care about the science of it. All he cared about was that it hurt and it wasn’t stopping. 

Wave after wave rushed out of him. After about ten minutes of going, he became aware of the feeling of acid burning the point of exit. He just wanted it all to stop. The cramping, the memories, the shitting. All of it. It just hurt. Then he started to remember other things.

He had been at a Hydra party. One of the strike teams had done some mission--he didn't know what. But he had been brought to the party as a reward. He was in the bedroom tied to the bed when one of the team members came in the bedroom. He was laughing at him, and asked if he wanted something to eat. Bucky had just nodded, (he had learned decades ago that refusing anything would get him punished) and the agent left the room, returning later with a tray of food. 

The tray contained everything that was being served at the party. Steak, potatoes, green beans, soup, some kind of little sandwiches and an array of desserts. The Asset had a few bites of food and said that he wasn’t supposed to eat more than that. The agent said that he had to eat it all. The Soldier had done as he was commanded. He had felt sick before he finished the steak and he was yelping in pain before he started desert. 

When he started the sweets, his body was already telling him to run not walk to the bathroom before he made a mess. He hurt so bad. The agent was laughing as he rocked and started to cry. No matter how strong and how much pain the Asset was able to take in the field, when it came to his secondary function he couldn't take much pain at all before he started crying. He was sobbing by the time the agent started rubbing his stomach. At first it felt better and then the agent shoved his hand into his stomach and laughed as the asset screamed. 

He began picking up speed as he rocked back and forth with no outlet for his urgent desire to run to the bathroom and shit except his fervent rocking. The asset started to beg to be untied so that he might go to the bathroom. He didn't think he could get out of bed without making a mess, but he knew he wouldn’t last long either way and at least he had to try. The agent just laughed and moved from the edge of the bed deeper on the bed. The agent commanded him to lay back down. The asset whimpered and started to beg. “Please please please let me go to the bathroom I will be good. I can’t hold it anymore. I am going to expel all over the bed. Please.” 

The agent just laughed and moved to sit on top of the Asset’s stomach. Bucky screamed when the agents weight settled on top of him, and as he did he lost control of his stomach and felt a hot rush pour out of him. The agent just laughed derisively as the asset sobbed and wailed. The agent sat heavily on him, grinding his cock into the Assets stomach as he watched the look on the Asset’s face. 

The agent grunted and then, the agent became bored and left the room having had his fun and going back to the party. The Asset dejectedly watched as the sun started to rise. It had been hours since he had been left alone in his own filth. His body had emptied itself six times before the group came in. The sun was already starting to set again. His whole backside was raw and burning as he laid there in his filth. His improved healing only mattered if he wasn’t sitting in filth. If the Soldier developed sores from laying in his mess they would heal and open again. Just to do it again only they would heal with the filth inside the wounds. The partygoers made it a point to come in to laugh and taunt him as he was unchained. They took him to the bathroom and disgustedly told him to shower. 

The water burned the sores on his ass and back of his thighs so badly he started crying again in earnest as he cleaned himself. One of the agents had been left with him to make sure he was clean before they used him. The Asset tried to be careful as he ran the rag between his cheeks and over his ass and legs where the worst of the sores were. He was being slow he knew, but he was trying to be careful, he was so raw. The agent had had enough of waiting and opened the shower door and grabbed the rag. 

“Face the wall you disgusting filthy whore,” he spat. The Asset spun and faced the wall putting his hands on it for support and the agent shoved the rag between his cheeks and began rubbing his sore, delicate, tender flesh open as he sadistically scrubbed him clean.

When the agent was done cleaning him, he was taken to the living room where the party had gathered. The Asset had stopped counting at fifteen and that was long before they were done with him that night; but he remembered that he never stopped screaming after the first man shoved into him with no lube. They hadn’t even given him time to adjust to being breached. He screamed long after there was no sound coming out because of how raw his throat was. 

When Bucky came back to himself he had no idea how long he had sat there, but he was done for now. His mind was still reeling from the memory of that night. His hole was so sore he knew he needed to be gentle. He couldn't bare to do more than wipe it roughly and all but run from the room trying to get away from the memory of that party. 

Of all the memories he had of his secondary purpose that one had been the worst. He still felt the pain as he made his way back to the bed. He couldn't tell if it was just his mind playing tricks on him or if he was that sore from shitting or if it was a little of both. One thing was certain, he didn't want to think about it. 

Glancing at the clock as he was crawling into bed and curling up, his flesh hand spread across his stomach trying in vain to ease the pain. He looked at the clock on the nightstand it was 1:30. As he started to drift he thought how can I hurt this bad after only two and a half hours.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't rainbows and butterflies. There are lots of sick.

Bucky had been drifting somewhere between waking and sleeping for about two hours when he sat up with a jolt. His stomach was cramping terribly and he knew he would have to rush to make it to the bathroom in time. He ran to the bathroom sliding his pants down as he sat. Even before he was seated, his body gave up the battle to hold it and his muscles let go. Scalding pain burned his raw skin as he passed what felt like liquid acid. He did his best to not make any sounds as his guts emptied. He shoved his flesh hand into his mouth, biting viciously to keep from screaming. He began rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face as the cramps tore through his body, with almost no break between gushes of filth since he sat down. 

After what felt like an eternity, the cramps were lessening and there were longer pauses between bouts; but it still hurt, and he knew that he was nowhere near done. He stood, which was a whole new agony, as soon as he stood the cramps in his stomach kicked up the tempo. 

As he started to clean himself, he grabbed the towel and stuck it in his mouth, biting down on it to muffle his screams when the rough paper made contact with his stinging hole. He wished he had some of the soothing wipes he had found in the baby aisle when he first started trying to eat real food. They were so much gentler than the dry paper. 

His trip back to bed was much slower. He didn’t bother to put back on the sleep pants he had found in a drawer in the bedroom. He knew he should get dressed and fetch the juice that he had found in the Frigidaire earlier, but he just didn’t have the energy to deal with it. He was running the risk of dehydration, but it was just too far; instead, he crawled back into bed and curled up, hugging a pillow to his complaining belly and attempted to sleep in the lull before the next trip to the bathroom. As he laid down, he looked at the clock--4:45 a.m.

He fell asleep pretty quickly this time, but it didn’t last long. He woke up more slowly this time until he was jolted to full awareness by a terrible cramp, panting and clutching at his stomach as he tried to sit up. He knew that the urgency was coming, and fast, but the pain was just too bad for him to get moving with any speed. He was about halfway to sitting upright when the need to go pounded him so fiercely that he leapt to vertical in one swift movement, afraid he was going to lose control right there on the bed. 

He hurt so much and his defenses were down already, and the thought of having to tell Steve or having Steve find out that he shit the bed had him in tears before he made it out from under the covers. He couldn’t bear the thought of having to tell Steve how disgusting he truly was. He just knew if he started disclosing that he’d soiled himself, then he would have to reveal everything. Bucky didn’t want Steve to see him as the used, dirty, disgusting abomination he truly was; He just couldn’t stand it. 

Once he finally made it to his feet, the urgency seemed to lessen, but he was only a few feet from the bathroom when the urgency suddenly worsened again. With a new level of desperation, he tried to make it to the bathroom, but as he stepped into the bathroom, he felt the burn of liquid leaking out of him. He was so close and it wasn’t a lot - he didn't think that it had run further than halfway down his legs - but it was enough to have him sobbing with pain, desperation and humiliation.

He didn’t think any had gotten on the floor and even if it had, he wouldn’t have to tell Steve; he could just clean it up off the tile floor in the bathroom. He was over the toilet before he fully started to go, but it was close. He was definitely not sitting when the first rush of sickness well and truly started. Any slower and he knew that he would have made a mess and disgraced himself. He didn't know where the cleaning supplies were and he would have had to tell Steve if he had gotten his filth all over the carpet. 

It burned like fire from the very beginning this time as the liquid poured out of him. It was just liquid now. It felt like all the water in his body had made its way to his intestines so that it could gush out of him. Every time he was hit with another wave, he would have to bite down on the towel to keep from screaming and waking Steve.

He didn’t understand why he had so little control of his emotions when he was like this. Just like when they used him for his secondary purpose, he would turn into a blubbering child as soon as the pain started. 

The cramps were doubling him over once again as his body expelled gush after gush of liquid. He felt exhausted and wrung out. Everything hurt. The cramps were never ending. All he wanted was for it to be over so he was able to go back to bed. 

He felt a desperate urgency to go more but he couldn’t get anything else to come out. He started pushing and straining,trying to make the pain and urgency go away. It was awful to feel like he was two seconds away from an accident and not be able to ease the pain by just going. He pushed and rocked back and forth and then he pushed more until his face felt hot and he was sure it was turning red. It was the desperate sensation of needing to empty himself that was killing Bucky. He just wanted to make that feeling stop. If he was done for now then he wanted to be done, but if he needed to shit more he wanted to just do so and get it over with. He didn’t want to have to come running back in here again. 

After ten minutes, when nothing happened, he gave up and decided he was done for a while. Getting up was agony for his sore abdomen. The thought of having to wipe himself had him weeping again. How can this hurt so bad after the things that have been done to me before, Bucky thought. 

His stomach was still churning, and the cramps were starting to build, and he just wanted the pain to stop. He grabbed the towel, stuffing it in his mouth and then, with a handful of toilet paper he began scrubbing at his abused, raw hole. He didn’t care that he was making it worse, it would heal; he just wanted to be done and be able to get back in bed.

As he was walking back to the bedroom though, the cramping started to get worse. He was almost to the bed when he felt his guts cramp violently and he spun so fast that he almost fell over as he sprinted for the bathroom. ‘I’m not going to make it,’ he thought in horror.

His stomach was cramping hard and the urgency was so overwhelming that he was hardly able to keep himself upright and moving. He had to shit so badly it was unbearable, but he couldn't bear the thought of wiping his tender, damaged skin again. He knew he had been making it worse all night by not being delicate, but he just couldn’t bear to take the time he needed to be gentle. 

He hated touching himself there. He could hardly stand to clean himself on the best of days, let alone when he was this wrung out and emotional. Sometimes he couldn’t stand to touch himself to shower. He would just stand there letting the water do it for him, hoping that would be enough. At the very beginning he hadn’t been able to wipe himself clean, but he had learned his lesson about that early on. But now with all the memories of his secondary purpose floating around in his head, with all the memories of Hydra and how disgusting he felt about himself, he had to literally force himself to do it every time he went. 

As he rushed to the bathroom, he shoved his fingers against himself, praying he wasn’t going to lose control of his bowels all over the carpet before he made it to the toilet. The panic that rose in his mind at the thought of touching himself there was still so much better than the terror of having to ask Steve where the carpet cleaning supplies were. Bucky imagined asking Steve where the cleaning stuff is, Steve demanding to know first why Bucky needed it. He could just see Steve standing there at his bedroom door, looking at the puddle of filth that Bucky had made with disdain and disgust or worse, pity. Logically, Bucky knew that Steve wouldn’t be disgusted, that Steve would offer to help him clean it up, but he couldn’t cope with Steve sighing his name and looking at him with pity, like he would a child who had gotten sick. 

As he reached the bathroom his gaze fell on the shower. He didn’t have time to think about what he was doing. His fingers were already coated in filth. He just climbed into the shower praying that the water would ease the burn and possibly make the cramps less painful. But most of all he hoped it would make cleaning himself easier and less excruciating 

As soon as he was in the shower, he snatched his hand away with a pained gasp and his body took over, releasing with the force of a water hose from within him. There was just so much. He hadn’t even reached for the water until long after the back of his legs was covered with waste and his hole was on fire. He fumbled for the controls and turned on the water, not even paying attention to the temperature. He just wanted the burning to stop. He simply wanted all of it to stop the burning, the cramps, the shitting, the memories--all of it. The only thing he could think of was getting the stinking fluids off his raw, angry body, hoping it would help the agony stop. 

Bucky stood there for what felt like forever with no pause in the onslaught. Between the spasms in his gut, he managed to get the water at a pleasant temperature, even messing with the knobs enough to discover that the shower had holes all over the walls that could spray water from all angles so he didn't get cold. 

After what felt like an eternity there was a lull. To Bucky’s shock and joy the water, rinsed the mess off his broken skin as soon as he wasn’t actively going, making the burn lessen immensely. It was still terribly painful, but it was tolerable now. 

He had kept his metal hand out of the water so far. The arm was as much a part of him as his real arm so he could get it wet. He could shower. Hell, he could even swim. But although he could get it wet, it took time and effort to dry. Bucky just knew he wouldn’t have the strength or patience to deal with it when he was done, and the thought of climbing into bed still wet and sleeping in a puddle from his arm just made him want to cry some more. So he did his best to keep his arm out of the water. 

The cramps were picking up again, and Bucky had shoved his flesh hand into his mouth as he braced on the wall with his metal arm. He was crying hard and whimpering with every new cramp, loud enough to wake Steve across the apartment if he hadn’t kept his hand in his mouth to bite down on. Even with his hand as a gag, if Steve got up to get a glass of water he would hear Bucky. 

After one particularly caustic rush of liquid, he ran his metal hand in between his cheeks without thinking, preoccupied with getting the mess off himself as quickly as possible, trying to make the burning stop. That’s when Bucky discovered that his metal hand was cool and felt quite soothing on his abused asshole. 

As much as he hated Stark, he had to hand it to the guy, he never ran out of hot water. He had been in the shower for well over an hour before he figured he was finally done. He was still sore as hell, but he was pretty sure that his body wasn’t going to decide to send him running for the bathroom again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank my amazing beta's OMOWatcher who has done so much to help my story, and Zelicious7 who makes my truly deplorable grammar readable. Without these lovely people it would not have been anywhere near what it is, so thank you so much for being willing to help.
> 
> So this story was supposed to be a five chapter story, that was mostly naughty sickfic and a nice enema scene. That isn't the way that it is working out. It is now about 40,000 words and mostly a hurt comfort story with moments or graphic sick and hopefully still a delightful enema scene. I am not going to change the rating or take out the graphic parts that are already posted, but this story is going to be more of a plot heavy story than I had planned to write.

Steve woke up earlier than he normally did. He was so excited to have Bucky back in his life after everything that had happened. It had been a huge surprise to find Bucky just standing at the museum, looking at the pictures of a life so long gone. Stretching, he decided that he wanted to make Bucky breakfast this morning. He was pretty sure that Bucky hadn’t been eating well since the helicarrier; he looked far thinner than he had when they fought, his face had a gaunt look to it now. 

Steve took a shower and padded out to the kitchen in a pair of knit pants with his hair still damp and tousled. He had a white T shirt on. It, like every shirt he owned, was just barely able to fit over him and it clung to the damp muscles of his chest as he made his way to the kitchen.

He moved around the kitchen in a calm, easy rhythm, cutting up some fruit and making a fruit salad to go with their breakfast. He was going to make eggs and bacon. He debated between pancakes and french toast, but lacking any day-old bread, he settled for pancakes.

While making breakfast, he heard the shower come on in Bucky’s room and what he assumed were moans and groans of pleasure as Bucky enjoyed Stark's amazing shower. The showers in the tower had the most amazing water pressure, and the arc reactor in the basement meant they never ran out of hot water. Bucky could enjoy his shower as long as he wanted and it wouldn’t affect anyone in the tower or run cold. Steve had indulged in many a ridiculously long shower since he came to live there himself. He still remembered being a kid too poor to afford much hot water and then, in the army, when there was no hot water to speak of. How many cold showers had Steve endured in his life? Hell, yes, he indulged in ridiculous showers now and then so who was he to judge Bucky for enjoying what could easily have been his first real indulgent shower? Steve didn't think that Hydra would have been generous with much, including his shower time. 

Steve was just about done when he heard the shower switch off in Bucky’s room. He walked over to Bucky’s door, knocked, and asked him to join him for breakfast.

Bucky was trying to dry himself off when he heard Steve talking to him through the door. He was trying to be delicate with his overly sensitive body. At least he would heal fast, so he shouldn’t be hurting too badly by the time he finished breakfast with Steve. He had failed to keep his arm out of the water and was fighting with it, trying to get it dry. He was only halfway listening when he realized that Steve was still prattling on about food. 

The mere thought of the selection of items that probably waited for him in the kitchen had Bucky’s stomach cramping and churning. ‘Great,’ Bucky thought, debating if he could make it through a meal without throwing up from just the memory of last night. “I’ll be right out!” he yelled as he started getting dressed. 

When Bucky finally appeared in the kitchen, the smell of fresh brewed coffee hit him first. As he saw what Steve had made for breakfast - the eggs, bacon, pancakes and fruit salad -, Bucky’s stomach turned anew. Bucky knew better than to drink coffee, no matter how much he wanted it. That would not go any better than the pizza had. He had made that mistake at some trendy coffee place in the museum when he was just starting to remember again. The aroma of roasted coffee was instantly familiar, his mouth watering at the memory and how much he had loved it, so he purchased a cup. He had barely made it out of the place before he was sprinting down the street, praying he makes it to his hotel in time. Nothing tasted good enough to justify that result. 

Bucky wasn’t sure what it was about coffee that was so hard on his system, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again. He sadly yearned for a cup of joe even as his mouth watered at the smell of it. Coffee had been a treat before the war, but in boot camp, and once he was deployed, it was one of the best things he had ever swallowed, even the dishwater that passed for it on missions. 

Bucky thought he could handle the eggs and fruit. He was pretty sure the bacon and pancakes were going to be impossible. As it happened, getting out of pancakes was easier than he thought. He just said that he’d had too many carbs last night and Steve dropped it. Good thing that all this trendy food bullshit had rubbed off on Steve. The next thing Bucky knew, Steve was saying something about even super soldiers needing to watch what they ate. 

Bucky got into the fridge and grabbed the carton of juice he had found last night; he poured a glass, chugging it while standing with the door still open before he poured another glass for himself and offered another to Steve. Steve nodded as he walked over to the table with the last of the pans from the stove. Although Bucky knew that the juice wasn’t enough to replace what he had lost last night, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself anymore than necessary. 

Bucky dished up a plate for himself, taking way more fruit than eggs and started eating. He hoped that the fruit would be okay. He had tolerated fruit before, though only a few pieces at a time, and just here and there. He had tried to be careful; even though fruit wasn’t greasy or heavy, he knew it could cause diarrhea even in healthy people if they weren’t used to eating it so he had been very leery of overdoing it. It still seemed preferable to eggs or bacon, though. 

This time, he took way more than he would have normally, hoping that it would be better on him than the rich, heavy foods that made up the rest of the meal. He prayed the eggs wouldn’t be bad; they weren’t as rich and greasy as the rest of the foods Steve had made. He knew he couldn’t get out of all the food on the table. He had been lucky to have Steve give up on getting him to eat pancakes so easily. But bacon had been something that was so rare back before the war. Bucky could count on one hand the number of times he remembered having had it in his life. There was no way Steve would drop him not eating bacon without asking a hundred and one questions, questions that Bucky didn’t know how to answer. He would just have to eat it and hope for the best. His stomach was rolling painfully even as he took the first bite of fruit. 

Steve chatted to Bucky about all sorts of things that had happened since he had come out of the ice. He told Bucky about seeing a color TV for the first time. “You didn’t seem too surprised so I guess you must’ve seen it at some point when you… uh…” Steve paused, looking away awkwardly. “Well, at some point,” Even though they were unspoken, he clearly heard the words with Hydra. Steve swallowed another mouthful and he continued to talk about his own experience of seeing it while he was just adapting to being in the twenty first century. 

As soon as Steve mentioned Bucky’s time as the Winter Soldier he knew it was a mistake. He just didn’t know how to stop the conversation, so he blundered on, talking about television and the way people dressed now, how bright everything was. He explained about how cool his Stark Phone was. “We have to get you one, Buck. You can literally do almost anything. I saw Tony fly the Quinjet with it one day,” Steve babbled excitedly. 

Bucky had used a Stark Phone before. Hydra had been very careful to keep Bucky up to date on technology; they didn't want him to stand out, a thirty year old and not knowing how to text or browse the internet. Bucky didn’t want to steal Steve thunder though, so he figured he would look suitably impressed when Steve got him a phone. His gratitude would be genuine, at least.

Bucky was surprised that his stomach wasn’t as upset as he feared it would be. It was bubbly and slightly crampy, but he wasn’t fighting the urge to run to his bathroom while praying he wasn’t leaving a trail of anything horrible in his work, so he counted it as a win. He hadn’t consumed nearly as much as Steve had and had hidden some of his tiny portions in his napkin, letting Steve’s excitement keep him preoccupied with how much Bucky was actually eating. 

At one point during the meal, Steve asked if he wanted to see the communal floor and Bucky said no. That was until Steve mentioned the gym, however. Bucky thought that running and working out would be a great way to burn off the nervous tension that was buzzing around under his skin. He wanted to get his mind off the upcoming trips to the bathroom. 

Bucky had done a lot of reading about stomach issues after he had escaped from Hydra. Learning about what it meant that he couldn’t tolerate food. Learning the best ways to introduce solids and how to mitigate as much sickness as he could. He had a pretty good idea of foods that he should be avoided at all costs, as well as the foods that he should be adding in first. He also knew that stress and anxiety would make things bad all on their own, even if he wasn’t eating anything but foods he knew he could handle. 

He had discovered that early on, that the more stressed he was, the worse his guts would react. When the memories and flashbacks were at their worst Bucky couldn’t leave his room. He could barely leave the bathroom for hours, and a few times, really early in his recovery, it had been for days. It was a never-ending circle. The stress made his stomach worse. His stomach being upset made him stressed. It just seemed to spin until it seemed like it would never stop. He hoped that getting in the gym now, a task he knew he could perform well and would enjoy, would help to lessen his anxiety and get his mind off his rebellious insides. 

Eager to reach the gym, Bucky took a few more half-hearted bites of food and stood up to start cleaning the kitchen. He figured the fastest way to get Steve off this floor and into the gym was to ensure there was no excuse to stay up here. Bucky washed the dishes in record time the prodded Steve to move faster as he dried and put them away, so they could get out of their quarters. Bucky would have taken over himself, but Steve insisted on helping.

“Since I know where things go,” he’d said. 

Bucky had done some recon last night while he looked for plates and glasses. He was sure he could have done it himself, but he let Steve do it because Steve had wanted to. It also seemed to be easier and faster to not argue, to let Steve do what he wanted as long as he was moving towards getting off this floor and down to the gym. 

When the last dish was put away, Steve stood back, looking shocked at how fast they had cleaned everything up. He definitely understood that Bucky wanted to get out and exercise. He was probably feeling stir crazy being trapped on this floor. That, or eager to prove himself, Steve figured, but if it would make Bucky happy Steve was happy to comply. 

“Come to my room, I want to give you some things before we go down to the gym,” Steve said as he started walking to his room. 

Bucky tried not to panic. He kept telling himself that Steve wasn’t like that. That he wouldn’t force Bucky to do anything Bucky didn’t want to do. But maybe Steve wouldn’t think it was force since they had been together so many times before he fell. Maybe Steve didn’t think he would be forcing him since he had done the same things for Hydra. Maybe Steve thought Bucky would like it. Maybe he thought Bucky was a whore who could be used with no ramifications because he was so used to it. Even while the logical part of him screamed in outrage at the idea that Steve would believe that, his own self-disgust and guilt drowned out the internal protest.

Bucky couldn’t help but think he would have to prove he was a good and useful tool before he could go to the gym, since he was obviously excited about going. He could feel his breathing becoming erratic as he walked. 

When they got to Steve's door, Steve walked over to a chest of drawers, opening the top one and grabbing what Bucky quickly realized were workout clothes for him. 

“We’ll have JARVIS get you your own things today, but since you’re so keen to get going, you can just use some of mine for now. I don’t know if my shoes will fit you, but Tony has a whole rack of them downstairs so we can train with SHIELD agents with no notice. You know, if they’re going to be on a mission with us. I’m sure there’ll be something that will fit you,” Steve explained.

Bucky had managed to get his breathing under control by the time Steve had finished talking. He had seen what Steve was collecting and was sure Steve wasn’t going to force him onto the bed, but his fear was not listening to rational thought. His heartbeat still pounded at an unhealthy rate, adrenaline coursing through his system. He just hoped that Steve was too busy rummaging through his clothes to notice before he could get himself completely under control. 

Steve handed Bucky the pile of clothes and said he would be ready in a few minutes, effectively dismissing him. Bucky was so happy he didn’t have to wait to get out of Steve’s room. He had managed to get himself under control, but it was barely there and likely to be lost just as quickly as it had been gained.

Steve was sure he had heard Bucky’s breathing become panicked when they were walking to his room, but he couldn't fathom why. He was thinking about it as he got changed into his workout clothes. His mind had gone over the way Bucky had looked the night before when they had gone into Steve’s room, the way he had frozen staring at the bed. The way he had become unable to track what Steve was saying as he talked about getting Bucky his own things. Steve could only come up with one reason while he was getting dressed. 

It was a reason that he just couldn’t wrap his head around, though. He couldn’t make the apparent and obvious answer line up with the indestructible man that was the Winter Soldier, who had managed to actually hurt him that badly. A super soldier wasn’t easy to hurt or control; how could they have hurt him in that way when he was so powerful? 

Steve had met a girl during the war. She was a dancer when he was doing his war bond shows. She panicked whenever they were around men in a hotel they were staying at. She had always followed Steve around, seeming to feel safe with him, having soon figured out that he would never let any drunk man go too far with her. Steve had asked her about it one night when they had been drinking together and talking. She said it brought up memories of her father. That was all she had said and Steve hadn’t needed to hear more. 

As Steve walked out of his room, he pondered whether some of Bucky’s torture had been sexual in nature, then shook his head, dismissing it as ridiculous. How could they have controlled him to do something like that to him? Hell, even Steve, with all his strength, had had a hard time keeping Bucky from killing him, and that was way easier than trying to control him to rape him. Steve was absorbed in thought as he walked into the living room. 

“You ready, Buck?” he yelled, standing by the front door. 

Bucky, meanwhile, had rushed out of Steve’s room and back to his own. He had managed to keep his breathing at least mostly in check until he was in his bedroom. Once safely behind his door, he sunk bonelessly to the floor. He had been aiming for the bed, but his knees had given way halfway across the room. He just settled for the floor once he was there. He was trying desperately to get his head back on straight. He knew Steve would be confused as to why he was so gung ho to go to the gym only to dawdle now, and when Steve was confused, he was curious. 

Bucky just couldn't get himself moving after he had stopped, though. He was vaguely aware his stomach was churning again. All of a sudden it was in the forefront of his mind as the urge to go to the bathroom became an all consuming need. He stumbled to his feet as hurriedly as he could without losing his control over his bowels. He needed to go now! Running to the bathroom, he got seated before the onslaught started all over again. 

This time, thankfully, it wasn’t too long before he was done. There wasn’t much left in him other than breakfast, and even with his digestion, it's way too soon for it to come out that way. After cleaning up, he came out of the bathroom to hear Steve milling around in the kitchen. Bucky changed and rushed out to meet him so they could leave for the gym. If Steve noticed anything he didn’t say anything; Instead, they just started towards the front door of their rooms.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has mentions of medical testing by sadists and a rape flashback.

Steve wasn’t sure what was taking so long with Bucky, but he was giving him time to do whatever he needed in order to get ready. He was still thinking about the dancer he had known a lifetime ago. The look she wore when a man came too close to her was the same vague panicked expression that Bucky had when he’d walked into Steve’s room. What bothered him the most, even more than the terror of what he now imagined had been done to Bucky, was that he’d looked as if Steve was going to hurt him in some way too. How could Bucky think that Steve would hurt him, no matter what those assholes had done to him? He wondered if maybe he should be asking someone with more experience than he had; the thought of voicing his concerns, however, would mean solidifying the vague idea into something far more real, even aside from the issue of breaking Bucky’s confidence, but who could he ask about that Sam maybe.

When Bucky finally exited his room, Steve gave him a huge smile. Trying his best to make it as genuine as possible, he then led the way out to the elevator and down to the gym. 

Bucky was glad to be given an outlet for his nervous energy. He walked out into the living room putting his hair up in a loose knot. He was more than ready to go by this point, before his anxiety overwhelmed him. As they strode out to the elevator, he looked around. He knew they were the only ones on this floor, but there was more space outside of Steve’s apartment than he had realised. He’d been on autopilot when he had first arrived here with Steve yesterday, too distracted to really notice what was going on in the hallway. There was no threat and that was about all Bucky had been able to comprehend. 

Outside the door of the apartment was a lobby, the bank of elevators, and even two sea green upholstered chairs so people could wait comfortably when they came to see Steve. Bucky was glad he didn’t have to worry about people just ending up in his living room simply because they were on Steve’s floor. It gave him more comfort than he wanted to admit. 

“JARVIS, elevator please,” Steve commanded. 

Stepping onto the elevator, Steve told JARVIS they were going to the gym. He knew JARVIS would inform the others they were leaving their floor. He didn’t want to frighten anyone who happened to be working out when they got there; neither did he want to make Bucky feel like a total pariah. 

When the doors opened, they walked out into the largest gym Bucky had ever seen. He’d thought it would be like the Hydra bases he could remember, that it would have a place for fight training and some standard equipment like treadmills, weight benches - strictly business. Instead, there was a sparring mat that was the size of half a basketball court and an entire wall of different cardio equipment. Bucky always got bored running in place. He was incredibly excited to see that there were stationary bikes and stair steppers plus a whole selection of other machines he’d never seen before. The best part was the screen in front of all of the equipment. When Steve jumped onto one of the treadmills to show Bucky, the screen came on automatically, allowing Steve to run in hundreds of different locations, from the Washington Monument to a mountain trail. 

“The equipment follows the terrain on the screen, so if you are running on a road in Rio there are hills and the treadmill changes incline so you feel like you are really there. I like to run outside but it can be hard when there are reporters waiting just outside the door. So this isn’t perfect, but it’s still pretty great,” Steve explained. 

Bucky nodded and turned on the spot, his eye landing on the punching bags off to one side. “They were designed by Tony for me,” Steve said, following his gaze. Anyone can use them, but these are reinforced. Tony used some new material he invented; he’s even worked it into my suit” He shook his head. “The mess those things make when you destroy them.”

Seeing that there was also an actual basketball court was a bittersweet moment for Bucky. He’d loved to shoot hoops as a kid. He didn’t think that the rest of the Tower residents would ever want to play with him, and he couldn’t play by himself. Even going one-on-one against Steve wouldn’t be the same. Even though he hadn’t wanted to be part of Hydra,he’d enjoyed the feeling of being on a team, with people you could count on and who were counting on you. He would never get to join them in the field of battle, but it would be a small comfort to play on a team - even if it was just a stupid basketball game. 

Down a short, sterile corridor was a room, walled with glass, that ran for almost the full length of the gym floor. Bucky looked in and saw a huge rectangular pool. He had learned to swim as a child, and then been retaught after his arm was replaced. It was a bitch to compensate for the weight, on land and in the water. Bucky had swum on missions, but he never really got to enjoy his time in the water. He was surprised at how eager he was to try it now. So many things could be directly linked to Hydra that he was excited to get to do and it was a relief to do something physical that wasn’t something they had made him do with their fucked up version of punishment . 

At the sight of the high dive, Bucky’s eyes lit up Sure, he’d dived off of bridges and shit like that, but yet again, it was never about learning to use his body or - God forbid - have a little fun. He wanted to try that, too; he was a little worried that his arm would make him too heavy and he would collide head first with the bottom of the pool, but he was pretty sure it wouldn’t kill him even if he did. 

Bucky wasn’t surprised to see what looked like a hot tub. Bucky had showered in Stark’s guest shower and it was amazing. It was clear there was little doubt that Tony was a hedonist, through and through. So, of course Stark would put a hot tub in the gym. Bucky would bet anything that Stark had one in his quarters that was just as big. 

Bucky could see two doors on one wall and figured they were either locker rooms or a sauna and a steam room. He was leaning towards the sauna and steam room, again Stark. But he hadn’t seen a locker room. He guessed it made sense, considering that the team were in the same building as their apartments, but who wants to take that stink into their home? He was sure that Steve would show him the locker room eventually. 

Steve let him just stand and look and take it all in. Bucky felt like he was in shock. There were additional rooms off to the side. Bucky couldn't imagine what else would be needed that wasn’t here all ready. He wanted to get at all that high tech equipment and work out the kinks. 

It felt like forever since he had been able to work out. He had been to the gym a couple of times, but only late at night and he had to be careful and only lift weights that a normal person could lift and not run as fast as he could or hit as hard as he could. It was worse than not having gone to work out at all. 

“Here let me show you around,” Steve Offered. He started walking though the gym floor. It helps in the field when we know how the others will react to different situations. We train as a team at least a couple of times a week. We will probably have you start training with us once we are a little more confident you aren’t going to fall back on your mission and try to kill me. It’s hard especially for Natasha and I to train in hand to hand. We only have each other to fight with full force and we have fought so much we can virtually not surprise the other. It’s hard to get really prepared that way. And Tony can fight with me but that’s about it. So it will be good for the team to have a real opponent who can fight with us and keep up. You know. The guys from Shield are good but they aren’t like us,” Steve explained.

That just made Bucky frustrated. He knew that while Steve was willing to fight with him and trust him, the rest of the team never would. He would never be used in training or on missions or in any way. He was going to live his whole life being a virtual prisoner in this fucking building. And with his luck it was going to be a long long life

“These are the civilian weights, and over there are some electronic weights Tony made for me.”

“It is great we can really workout. We can push ourselves, see just how much we can lift,” Steve was saying as he started tinkering with the switches showing Bucky how it all worked. 

All Bucky could think about was the early days with Hydra. They had been fixated on finding out his exact capabilities. They had made him run till he passed out over and over again. Trying to see if they could push him farther. To see if they could extend what he was able to do like a regular human with training. They kept adding more weights to things and having him lift them for hours. Day after day for months if not years. Then there were the tests to see what he would heal from, and how long each injury took to heal. 

They had broken almost every bone in his body during that period. Most were broken dozens of times. They had wanted to see if the amount of damage done to the body as a whole effected healing time. They also wanted to know if muscle damage effected healing times the same way that extensive bone damage did. 

Then there were the tests to see how much he could endure even with an injury. How long he could function with what types of injuries. They wanted to see how much he could do. They had tried to infect him with diseases and see what he would heal from. They had done things like cut his arm and put dirt or other things in the wound and see if he could overcome infection. 

Bucky had seen exactly what he was capable of doing decades ago. But he guessed that for Steve testing his body was fun. It was his own experiment. Not something that was done to him. No one was breaking a bone in his leg and telling him to run until he couldn’t, knowing he would be electrocuted when he stopped in order to force him to go until he absolutely couldn’t take one more step. 

“It has to do with electromagnets in the floor. You just dial up how heavy you want them to be and the machine takes it from there.” Steve was explaining the intricacies of the mechanism, but Bucky had tuned him out long ago, lost in his own memories. 

“Of course there is the basket ball court. I keep trying to get people to play baseball but they all say it’s boring. But basketball is fun too. We just play for fun. It will be nice to have another super soldier aroun. They generally make me play by myself or two on five. They say it’s the only way that it’s fair. I still don’t think it's fair. But they won’t play with me otherwise,” Steve was saying as Bucky’s brain came back on track.

“I wouldn’t mind playing baseball,” Bucky mentioned as they walked around the gym. Mostly Bucky just wanted to be out in the world.

“This is the pool. It has lap lanes and a high dive so you can do that. There is a hot tub and sauna and steam room. It’s great after missions to really be able to relax. I heal of course, but it still helps with the soreness you know. No idea why when it heals in an hour or twelve why it hurts like a bitch for days after,” Steve explained. 

Bucky couldn’t help but be angry that Steve kept talking about all the things that he could do to prepare for missions or for after missions. But Bucky knew that was all bullshit to placate him. Or worse, Steve’s own foolishness about what he would be able to do. If Steve was foolish enough to truly believe that Bucky would be able to do all the things that he said he would then Steve was a fool. Bucky wanted to believe it was just Steve seeing the best in everyone like he always did but maybe he had changed and was trying to be cruel. Bucky wasn’t going to rule anything out Hydra had taught him to never trust anyone. 

Bucky knew the team would never let him go in the field. They would probably never let him even play basketball with them. He was a killer and a Hydra killer at that. They would never trust him. He was a scary dog that you kept because he kept your house safe but you kept him chained up outside because as much as he kept you safe, he also might attack you just the same. 

He just walked around after Steve pretending like he would get to go on missions sometime. Pretending he would be on the court running and making jump shots with his team. Pretending they would spar with him so that he could help them be better. Sadly he knew that training against him would make them better. He was an unknown quantity. They wouldn’t be able to anticipate his movements or decisions. But they would never ever give him that chance. “Their loss,” he thought bitterly.

Steve was so excited to get to show Bucky the gym. He wanted Bucky to be excited about working out and all of the things that they could do. He was just finishing up showing him around. He had shown him all of the rooms that Steve used regularly when it dawned on him that he had forgotten to show Bucky Natasha’s ballet studio. 

Steve had only been in there once and really only knew where it was by his lack of knowledge of that space. He wanted to give Bucky a full tour so he walked over to the studio and opened the door. 

Bucky walked in ahead of him for the first time since he had entered the tower. Bucky went straight to the bar and grabbed it. He immediately started doing things that Steve had no name for. All he knew was that he had seen Natasha do them when she was stretching or was just messing around. 

Bucky looked beautiful. His movements were all fluid grace. He was far more graceful than Steve could ever hope to be. He himself was big and lumbering where Bucky was swift, supple catlike movements. A jaguar on the prowl. Steve was mesmerized as he watched. They were beautiful even if not complicated movements. 

Steve stared as Bucky seemed at peace for the first time since he had entered the tower. He had a barely there smile, but he looked content in what he was doing. Sure Bucky had loved to dance back when they were both younger, but that had been with girls in bars not like a prima ballerina. Steve just stood and watched as Bucky danced. He slowly left the safety of the bar and started moving around the room unselfconsciously adding jumps and spins. 

‘Where had he learned to do that?’ Steve wondered. What could Hydra have needed him to dance like that for? Sure Steve could see the use for him to know his way around a ballroom dance floor. Missions and assassinations would be easy if your assassin could waltz into a high class party. But this--whatever possessed them to have him learn to dance? 

Bucky had not been able to control himself when he saw the ballet studio. He had walked in. No hesitance in his mind. He just had to be in there dancing. Moving. He grabbed the bar and started doing pilates. He warmed up his body, then started adding in more complicated movements. Before he knew it he was leaping across the floor. Truly happy for the first time in seventy years. 

They had taught him to dance because they wanted him to learn to be quiet and agile. To learn to be graceful. It had, however, been more than that to Bucky. He had loved it from the first time he had gone into the studio. The music for one, and the fact that for the first time they were training him to do something that wasn’t actively about killing. Sure they had told him that they wanted him to be more agile and graceful, but learning to leap and dance hadn’t been just about the movements, he had loved every moment of training. 

Bucky danced for what felt like forever. He just kept dancing even though there was no music. He just kept going, loving the movement, loving being one with the music that was playing in his head. After a while he came back to himself and started to panic. He knew that Natasha would be furious about him being in her space, contaminating it. This was her special room. Steve told him that he never came in here. Bucky abruptly stopped dancing and rushed over to the doorway where Steve was standing, immobilized, mesmerized with the performance he had just observed. 

“Let's go.” Bucky mumbled, walking quickly past Steve. 

Bucky walked back to the room with the sparring mats. He yearned to be punished. He wanted the ache of fist on face. He wanted to taste blood. He wanted to do what he was good at.

Bucky kicked off his shoes as he got to the mat. He did it in one fluid motion not even pausing as he went. When he stepped barefoot onto the mat he shucked off his shirt and threw it on the floor by his shoes. He turned expectantly to Steve, waiting for him to join him on the mat. 

Steve watched in awe as Bucky stopped dancing looking lost and panicked then rushed to the sparring mat. Steve just turned and followed not knowing what else to do other than follow and, he guessed, fight. Steve had figured on weights or cardio but if Bucky wanted to fight, he guessed he would fight. He could use the practice anyway. 

Bucky looked amazing as he stepped out of his shoes and then stripped off his shirt. Steve’s mouth was watering and he was so lost in what he was seeing he almost tripped taking off his shoes. He just hoped he didn’t get a boner when they fought. 

‘No way out but through,’ Steve thought, steeling himself for the fight he knew was coming. 

“We need rules, Buck,” Steve said as he stepped shirtless onto the mat. “No punching my face with your metal hand. No punching my kidneys with your metal hand. And if I tell you that we have to stop, you have to stop. I don’t want it to be like it was on the helicarrier,” Steve explained. 

Bucky just nodded and watched, waiting for Steve to give any indication that he was ready to spar. Finally Steve nodded and strode towards Bucky. Slowly circling around, him plotting his next move. It happened in an instant; one second Steve was moving around him and the next he was throwing a lightning-fast right cross. 

Bucky wasn’t expecting Steve to throw the first punch. He thought Steve would wait for him to make the first move. But then there was a fist connecting square on his jaw. His head reeled back from the blow. 

Bucky smiled at him, a sick ghastly grin, blood showing on his teeth. Spitting blood onto the mat, he nodded as if inviting the next punch. As soon as the next hit connected, Bucky was turning his body to set up a punch to Steve’s stomach. He had his left hand blocking his face. If Steve was stupid enough to try and punch him and hit his metal hand that was his own fault, Bucky thought

Bucky was doing well. Holding his own even though he only really used his right hand to punch with. He had hit Steve several times in the face and stomach. Steve was growing more and more bold, trying to get a punch in to Bucky’s face. Bucky was still blocking with his metal hand when Steve saw an opening. He threw a powerhouse punch, but missed his window, hitting Bucky full force right on his metal arm. 

Steve positively felt his hand break. Even if there had been no pain, and there certainly was, the sickening sound of bones breaking left absolutely no doubt. He knew it would heal, sure, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch. He dropped his hand and shook it as if that would make the hurting stop. 

“Do you need a minute?” Bucky asked fake sweetness in his voice as he did. 

“No I’m good,” Steve forced out as he circled around Bucky trying to get a good shot. He had circled twice when it dawned on him that he hadn’t said no feet. 

Steve lined up a nice kick and hit Bucky on his side with his shin. Bucky hit the deck. He wasn’t out just down. Steve leapt on him and started hitting him. Bucky was fast but not quite fast enough, and Steve got in a few good hits before Bucky was able to get his hand up and block with his metal hand again. But that was all it took for Steve to be sitting on him fully, straddling him. His knees on the mat and his feet laying on Bucky’s thighs, holding his legs down so Bucky couldn’t get his legs around Steve. Steve was raining punches down on Bucky. Mostly to his torso but every so often Bucky would move his hand just enough for Steve to connect with Bucky’s face. 

Bucky’s fighting went from calculated and precise to random flailing and desperate movements. Steve was so lost in battle that it took longer than it should have for him to realize that there was something wrong. Bucky was wide eyed and panicked, his breathing coming hard and fast. His eyes blown wide. Still fighting desperately to get Steve off him. But there was no skill to it, just desperate punches and slaps. Hands pushing on Steve's chest and trying to get him up more than win the fight. Steve leapt off Bucky, backing away, his hand over his mouth in dismay. His own breathing became erratic and panicked as he did. 

Steve knew that the last seventy years hadn’t been all roses and sunshine, but the panic in Bucky’s eyes told Steve that his fears about his friend’s reactions hadn’t been too far off the mark. He watched, totally focused, as his oldest friend angled himself to an upright position and crabbed backward on the mat until he hit the wall. All the time he looked at Steve like he was going to eat him. 

Steve wanted to throw up. He wanted to run and hide and not know the things he did. Not have to come to the conclusions that he was coming to. Steve wanted to be sick. He was afraid he was going to lose his lunch all over the mat as he watched Bucky curl in on himself in panic. 

Bucky had been loving the fight. He was actually fighting with someone who was as strong as him. Someone who could take a punch full force and not be killed. Someone who in a one-on-one fight could actually manage to get in a hit. Someone who could manage to make him bleed. Bucky was shocked and somewhat pleased when Steve kicked him. He was a boyscout and always would be the noble and the honest soldier Captain America through and through, but he was fighting dirty and Bucky was loving it. Steve had managed to get him down and to get on top of him. Pinning him to the mat. Punching him while he was down--it was nice to see Steve fight dirty. Then Steve had managed to get his feet onto Bucky’s legs holding them down and apart as he did. All Bucky could do was thrash and slap and punch wildly. Reality merged into brutal flashback as he could actually feel the feet on his legs holding him open as he was fucked into total submission. 

Bucky was lost in his own mind. All of a sudden it wasn’t Steve sparring with him in the safety of Stark Tower, it was some strike team leader on his chest naked and trying forcefully to get Bucky to suck him off. All the while, another team member was lining up to fuck into him dry. (They always fucked him dry. He didn’t know lube was a thing until some strike team guy got it in his head that he was in love with Bucky and wanted to make it enjoyable for him.) Bucky could feel the agent behind him shoving his way in. Forcing him to take him to the hilt in one go. Bucky could feel the tearing and the burn as he was pounded into the floor. He could hear the grunts and pants as he was fucked. 

The next thing Bucky knew Steve was across the mat staring at him with knowing eyes as he scooted in reverse until his back was against the wall. Bucky had to concentrate to not be sick. He knew he had tears in his eyes as he pushed himself harder back into the wall. But his stomach was rolling and his mouth was filling with saliva as he watched Steve, his breaths coming fast and hard. 

Steve wanted to go to his friend. To give him some kind of comfort. At least tell him it would be okay, but when he took one step forward, he watched as what little bit of calm Bucky had managed to pull together completely shattered. He saw as Bucky hid his head and scrambled, trying to hide in the wall more than he already was. Steve about fell over he was trying to back up so fast. He was trying to make things better and clearly was just making them worse. 

Steve just stood and watched, tears in his eyes as Bucky slowly calmed himself down and managed to uncover his head and come away from the wall. One second Bucky was a sobbing mess on the floor, the next he was up and had his shoes on and was marching toward the hall and subsequently the elevator. Steve just stood dumbfounded until Bucky popped his head back in.

“Hey I want to go to my room and the FUCKING elevator won’t respond to me!” Bucky barked. 

Steve was shocked into action at that, and rushed, leaving his mess as he all but ran to the elevator where Bucky was waiting, clearly doing everything he could not to look at Steve. There was no mistaking the look of don’t say a goddamn word on Bucky’s face as he stared vacantly at the wall, waiting on the elevator to come. 

Steve just asked JARVIS to take them to their floor without stopping and pointedly looked at the door till they got off. Steve rushed out the doors as soon as they opened, leaving Bucky some shred of dignity. Steve rushed to his room and shut the door, albeit a little harder than he intended. He walked over and sank onto the bed. Putting his head in his hands, he wept .


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky had never been so grateful for anything in his life, as he was when Steve just got him to the floor as fast as possible and didn’t look at him. Bucky thought he would lose it again if Steve looked at him with those fucking pitying eyes. He had never wanted Steve to know. He didn’t want Steve to see him as he really was. He wanted Steve to see the cocky, smart, confident man he had been, not the shell of a man he was now. He wanted Steve to feel like he used to. To feel the love and happiness, not pity and sadness.

Steve had rushed off the elevator so fast he left Bucky to walk to his room with no company but his own shame. For some reason that both made Bucky feel better and turned his stomach all in one go.

Bucky walked straight into the bathroom and into the shower. He still had his shorts and shoes on, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to feel clean. He knew it was a cliche as fuck to want to feel clean and not be able to. He knew that showering excessively was a hallmark of rape victims. When Bucky had been reading all that stuff about his stomach, he had picked up a few books about rape aftermath and post traumatic stress. He knew that what he was feeling and doing were normal. It didn't change the fact that it made him feel weak and pathetic for doing it. He felt stupid and like an overly-emotional child for the all-consuming need to clean away dirt that was emotional; the real evidence of the assaults has been long since gone. A great portion of the people who had actually raped him were long since in the ground. There were even a few that Bucky had gotten to put there himself. He knew he never would truly feel clean, but he desperately needed to have the ritual of washing himself and getting the filth and memories off of him.

Bucky turned on the water with very little care for how hot it was. He just stood there under the spray for what seemed like forever, tears running down his face, shorts clinging to his legs, shoes wet and soggy on his feet. He wasn’t sobbing like before. It wasn’t the deep, ragged breathing cries of earlier. They were steady and desperate. Tears of bone-deep sadness and humiliation.

It was a long time before he could even get it together to take his shorts off. He finally shucked off his shorts and started washing himself. He started from the top just like ma taught him so many years ago.

The shampoo smelled like jasmine as he squirted it into his hand. When he had a puddle in his hand he slapped it onto his head, immediately rubbing his head, lathering the soap. He generally liked washing his hair, it always reminded him of ma. Her sitting on the toilet and him in the bath as she washed his baby-fine hair. For some reason she never thought he was capable of washing his own hair. He could remember her wanting to smell his head up until he was like twelve to make sure it was actually clean.

Once he had washed and rinsed his hair, he grabbed the sponge that wasn’t a sponge. It was scratchy and hard but after he got it wet it got softer, but it was still firm and scratchy. He liked it but it was odd. Something he had never seen before. He squirted soap on it and started washing himself. He scrubbed his body from neck to toes, skipping over his private parts. He didn’t think that doing his junk with the scratchy sponge was a good thing, although for a moment scrubbing those traitorous parts of him until they were raw seemed like an excellent punishment

Once he was all done with his body, he dropped the sponge on the floor of the shower and put soap in his hand and started washing his cock. Washing his cock hadn’t been fun in seventy years and it wasn’t fun now. He just simply ran soapy water in and over it, cleaning it like he would clean his hand or foot.

After he washed the front he started washing the back. As soon as he ran his hand over his hole it started to burn and hurt. It was still raw from last night and this morning. Bucky just kept running his soapy hand back and forth over his hole. At some point he grazed it with his nail and even though it hurt he liked it. For once the pain in his hole belonged to him. There was no one who was doing this to him now. At some point he grabbed the sponge thing and started scrubbing himself back there with it. It felt like sandpaper was rubbing the flesh off his asshole as he did it, but he didn’t care.

He was the one causing the pain and it was oddly satisfying. He kept at it, running the sponge thing back and forth over the tender flesh. When the scrubbing was no longer enough to get the same pain and sensation he shoved two fingers in and then pulled them back out making sure to drag his nails along the abused raw flesh as he did. At some point Bucky looked down and saw that the shower floor was red. He looked at his hand and it too was red. It took him a minute to fully understand what he had done. Even when he had figured it out he still had to force himself to stop scrubbing himself and get out of the shower and dry off.

Bucky slowly came back to himself as he stood in the bathroom and dried himself. Long after he had wiped the blood away did it dawn on him that he had gotten blood on the towels and that Steve was going to find out what he did. He was too exhausted to really think about that. It wasn’t like rubbing his fucking asshole bloody was going to make him more pathetic in Steve’s eyes. He knew what a fucking pathetic whore he was, so what did it matter.

Bucky finished drying himself and walked to the bed dropping his towel as he walked. He hadn’t bothered to do more with his metal arm than he had with his real arm; it would drip and leave the bed with a puddle on it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Exhausted, he climbed into the bed and drifted into a fitful sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve released his full weight on the bed, watery eyes unseeing, and soundlessly cried. He didn’t know what to do with what he had seen in the gym. Steve didn’t even know a man could be raped. Sure he had heard his ma talk about a boy in the hospital where she worked who had a funny uncle. He had heard of small boys having unnatural things done to them. He just couldn't make those pictures in his head line up with Bucky. Bucky was a grown man. Bucky was a goddamn super soldier. 

Maybe in prison men raped each other but not out in the world. What use would Hydra have had with doing that to Bucky? As much as Steve wanted to believe it wasn’t true, he had seen the look in Bucky’s eyes--the pain and sadness there. Steve couldn’t find a way that he could deny that someone had done something to Bucky that should have never been done to another human being. Someone had violated Bucky in way that was so horrible, so unspeakable,that Steve simply couldn’t process it.

As Steve sat there thinking about the other things Bucky had done since he had come to the tower, it all started to click into place. The look of panic when Steve had shown him his room. The look of fear, the hyperventilation when Steve had called him into his room to give him the workout clothes. ‘Oh god he thinks I am going to do those things to him to,’ Steve thought with a groan. Jumping up and running to the bathroom, he dropped to his knees and lifted the the lid just before he forcefully lost his breakfast. 

Steve sat on his feet there in front of the toilet for what seemed like an eternity. He just kept thinking about the look on Bucky’s face as he had tried to walk towardsss him and his stomach would heave anew. He had long since run out of things to throw up, but the nausea and dry heaves continued. ‘What am I going to do? He thinks that I am just like them. That he isn’t safe with me,’ he thought as he tried to calm his stomach enough to get out of the fucking bathroom. 

Finally he managed to get his stomach to the point that the rolling waves weren’t threatening to go anywhere and it was safe to get out of the bathroom. All he wanted to do was go to bed and never wake up. He looked longingly at his bed, but he didn’t want Bucky to think for a minute that he was ashamed of him. He decided that sketching in the living room while he listened to quiet music was the best option. He would be there if Bucky wanted him and but not intrude on his space. 

Steve grabbed his sketch book out of the office as he walked to the living room. Then he unceremoniously dropped all his sketch stuff on the couch and walked into the kitchen so he could go make tea. He started some ginger tea and dry toast, hoping it would soothe his still-roiling stomach. 

Gathering his charcoal pencils, his mind couldn’t focus on his art. All he could think about was Bucky, what Bucky needed, how he must be feeling, what horrible memories must be hidden in the recesses of his friend’s mind. Rather than go all the way down that melancholy rabbit hole, he focused on something tangible, so he asked JARVIS to start a shopping list for Bucky.

“JARVIS can you arrange for some things to be purchased for Bucky?” Steve asked.

“Why of course.” The AI responded. “What does Mr. Barnes require?”

“Well he needs clothes. Can you figure his sizes from his measurements on your sensors?” Steve asked.

“Why of course, Sir.” JARVIS replied like the idea of him not knowing the exact size of everyone in the tower was ludicrous. He managed to sound offended when he answered. 

“Okay, so he needs clothes. Some jeans and shirts. Workout stuff and shoes, shorts, pants. Oh and a swim suit. Maybe a belt, too. He needs a phone. Ask Tony if he wants to give him one of his encrypted phones that we all use or if you should just get him a Stark Phone from the store. He needs his own laptop. Again JARVIS ask Tony if he wants to get him one that is encrypted or just buy it. I don’t really know about computer specks, just get him a good one if Tony doesn’t want to give him an encrypted one. 

He will also need his own shower stuff. I know there is stuff in there, but can you get him some different stuff so he can try it and see what he likes. We only had bar soap as kids, and it wasn’t scented like they are now. He probably needs conditioner. Maybe ask Pepper, she will know what he needs if you don’t. Oh and JARVIS can you get him a tablet like the one you got me? And can you set it up with all the books and movies in the database?”

“Sir all the movies and songs won’t fit,”JARVIS explained.

“They are all on mine.” Steve said

“Sir they are just available on yours. Is that acceptable?” JARVIS asked. 

“Oh, of course that’s fine,” Steve said feeling somewhat foolish. 

“Oh and JARVIS can you get Bucky a hydroflask bottle for the gym? And can you double my standing grocery order. I am sure that Bucky will have things he wants that aren’t on mine, but for now I just want to make sure that we have things on hand.” Steve paused, wondering if there was anything he’d forgotten. 

“When would you like all this delivered?” JARVIS asked.

“Tomorrow sometime in the morning, but not too early, and JARVIS can you find the top ten books on surviving sexual assault and guides of partners of sexual abuse survivors?” Steve asked. If JARVIS had an opinion he didn’t share it. 

As an afterthought Steve decided he should ask JARVIS for a favor. 

“Hey JARVIS one more thing. Can you talk to Bucky and just remind him that you can arrange for just about anything to be brought here for him. I have told him but I’m not sure that he understands just how good you are. I am sure there are things he wants or needs that aren’t here and I don’t want him to feel like he has to ask me to ask you for them. And can you mention that you won’t tell me what he asks for unless it is something that you feel is related to my safety? Thanks JARVIS you are great,” Steve said making sure to show his admiration for the AI. Things around the tower were made so much easier by the AI’s presence. 

“And one last thing. JARVIS can you put on some quiet modern music for me to sketch by?” Steve asked. 

JARVIS put on something quiet and modern. Steve was quite happy with what JARVIS had selected. It was someone called Amos Lee. 

Steve had sketched the New York in his mind first. The old neighborhood and then Times Square. Then he had sketched Bucky’s face from when they had been at Coney Island as kids. Bucky was so happy that day. He’d never forget Bucky’s delighted look of mischief when he’d talked Steve into riding The Cyclone. Steve had been sick after riding it the first time, but he rode it again just to prove he could. 

Then he sketched Bucky standing on the Bridge the first time he had seen him after the fall. Then it was Bucky sitting on the floor hunched in on himself crying. Even in his pain, even with tears streaming down his face, there was something beautiful about him. No amount of pain and sadness could change that. The lean hard muscle, the square set of his jaw. Even his long hair falling out of it’s bun was beautiful. It was so drastically different than it had been when they were kids. But it was so beautiful. 

As soon as the sketch was finished, Steve tore the page out and walked into his room and hid it in the bottom drawer of his dresser under some clothes. The last thing he wanted was for Bucky to come out of his room and ask to see what Steve had been sketching and see the craven, desperate way that he had looked to Steve. To see Steve capturing it for all time. 

When Steve had put it away, he walked back into the living room and started a new drawing. This one was a very naked Bucky. Bucky had posed for him a few times before the war, but this picture was from when they were in a tent just after he had rescued Bucky from Zola’s lab. He had that stupid cocky grin on his face. Arms crossed behind his head looking like he knew he was god's gift. Steve could remember Bucky thinking that pose was a good idea until about fifteen minutes in and then he whined and complained about his arms until Steve hurriedly finished. But he’d never stopped smiling. He never lost that stupid happy look, even with the amount he had complained about how sore and tired his arms were. 

That’s what he was working on when Bucky came out of his room. Bucky poked his head out of his door and Steve hadn’t even noticed that the door had opened, he was so lost in what he was working on. He had spent twice as long on this picture as he had on the others. He had a little grin on his face as he worked. Bucky saw Steve looking happy and content and it bolstered his courage to come out of his room. He walked over to the back side of the couch where Steve was sitting. Bucky peered over his shoulder as he worked on the sketch. Steve was beyond happy that he had taken the other picture into his room before Bucky came out. He couldn’t imagine what Bucky would have felt if he had seen it. But Bucky seemed pleased as he watched Steve draw. 

“Do you remember posing for me?” Steve asked. 

“Fuck yeah. I think my arms are still sore from that. It took you forever and it was so uncomfortable,” Bucky griped. “I think you drug it out longer just to hear me complain.” 

“You’re the one who decided to pose like that. I didn’t tell you to,” Steve reminded. 

“Yeah yeah whatever. You could have moved it along. I have seen you draw things that happened three days ago with perfect detail. You just wanted to torture me,” Bucky bitched.

“You love being the center of my attention. You know you do,” Steve chided with a contented smile. 

“Yeah maybe,” Bucky admitted.

They fell into an easy silence, the kind of silence you can’t have unless you are truly comfortable with someone. Steve wondered at the ease to which they were around each other now. ‘Maybe he wasn’t afraid of me, maybe it was that I would find out,’ Steve thought. 

Finally Bucky stepped over the back of the couch so he could sit on it. He sat on the other end of the couch from where Steve was sitting. But at least he was on the couch. Steve counted it as a win that Bucky remained on the same piece of furniture as him. 

“Hey I am kind of digging this pre-war vibe you have going on in here, but seriously this couch is just as uncomfortable as those godawful ugly chairs. Seriously they have fringe. Come on Steve. I have seen gay men in this century. You can be gay and not THIS gay. Any chance we can get something in the overstuffed or lazy boy family? I know you were frozen for seventy years but I have been out and about on several occasions and we can do better. Maybe not as stylish as whatever the lady who did the lobby would pick but comfortable,” Bucky said, shooting Steve a knowing look. 

“They are ridiculously uncomfortable aren’t they?” Steve commented, a smile on his face, but not a look of just placating Bucky. He genuinely looked like it was just dawning on him that they were horrendously uncomfortable. 

Leave it to Steve to not notice that he’d picked out furniture that could double as torture instruments from the Inquisition until it was pointed out to him. Bucky chuckled and sat back, listening to the music that was playing in the room and closed his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

Bucky sat on the couch for what seemed like forever. He just tipped back and listened to the music and the sound of the scratching as Steve sketched. Add the calm, even sound of Steve's breathing and it lulled him into a feeling something akin to peace. Bucky let a small smile play at the corners of his mouth as he sat there taking in Steve's presence. It was so bizarre to have the presence of another person calm him instead of setting him on edge. 

After about two hours, Steve moved the sketch book off his lap and turned to Bucky. “Hey, what are you thinking of for lunch?” Steve asked. 

“I am not really hungry.” Bucky said, his stomach already churning at the thought of eating more food. 

“Well, I was thinking something like sandwiches. How does that sound?” Steve asked. 

“I could make some soup, maybe.” Bucky said, looking at Steve and hoping that he wouldn’t be able to tell how much he didn’t want to have lunch. 

“Soup sounds great. I’ll get that started. I wish I had something homemade, but the canned stuff is pretty good,” Steve explained as he got up and walked into the kitchen. Steve was puttering around in the kitchen getting things ready. He started four cans of soup and then he made each of them two sandwiches. He also grabbed the fruit salad out of the fridge and a bag of chips out of the pantry. He missed so many things about his childhood, but he didn’t miss the scarcity of food. The amount of food and the abundance was so much nicer than being hungry or only having fruit when it was in season. 

He had heated up the soup and got the rest of the food on the table when he called Bucky for lunch. Bucky silently groaned to try to steel himself for eating again. His stomach had settled while he was sitting there with Steve, but that was over as soon Steve brought up the subject of food. 

Steve could swear that Bucky looked reluctant to sit down to eat. Steve figured it was the stress that was affecting his appetite. 

“Hey Bucky are you sure you want to eat? Maybe you should just have a little soup and maybe some fruit salad. You look a little green around the gills,” Steve didn’t want to be mean or make Bucky uncomfortable, but his friend looked like he was going to lose his lunch. Hell, Steve had already lost his and it had to be a thousand times worse for Bucky. 

“I think that might be a good plan, my stomach is a bit off. Probably the stress and all,” Bucky lied.

“I have some stuff for my stomach. I have meds for indigestion and diarrhea. Even with my healing I had a hard time with eating some of the foods that are around now. You know, with all the chemicals and what have you. My system wasn’t really ready for that, you know. 

“The only thing is that none of it works like the bottle says; I have to take like eight times the dose for any of it to work. I tried to take sleeping pills once right after I woke up. I wasn’t living here. I had a brownstone in Brooklyn and the noise on the street was killing me. There is just so much more than there was when we were younger, they even call it noise pollution. I gave up when I had taken half the bottle! 

“It’s a lot like drinking. Do you remember that time we had left and the Commandos decided that they were going to get me drunk no matter what, and I drank like five bottles of vodka and was drunk for about ten minutes before I sobered up?” Steve rambled. 

Bucky smiled. “Yeah, I remember how drunk everyone else was, I figured that you weren't actually drunk, just pretending so we didn't die from all sitting around drinking for the whole day. I think we were like one drink away from blood alcohol poisoning. I can’t believe you were actually drunk even for a minute,” Buck said. 

Bucky mostly poked at his food. He wanted to just tell Steve he needed the pills. He just didn’t want to have to tell him about the not being able to eat real food thing, and how sick he had been last night. He knew it was stupid to not fess up to having a fucked up body, but he just couldn’t cop to it. So he just sat there picking at his food, praying his stomach wouldn’t rebel too badly tonight. 

Steve watched Bucky eat his food. Now that he was paying attention, he could see that Bucky had not eaten nearly as much as before but he still ate about as much as Natasha or Bruce did so he figured that Bucky wasn’t doing too bad, but he wondered if he should just give Bucky the meds he had mentioned, and hope it would help whatever was obviously going on with his body. 

Steve wondered how much Bucky was hiding from him. He was so ashamed of himself for not seeing through Bucky’s thinly-veiled ruse. He had been so focused on having his friend back that he wasn’t seeing what was going on right in front of him. He wondered if Bucky had been eating since his escape. He looked so much thinner than he had on the bridge. 

Maybe he should offer to take Buck to the doctor. That thought was dismissed almost as soon as it flitted into his mind. Now that he thought about it, there had to be tons of doctors on staff when Bucky was being enhanced, and knowing Hydra they weren't a loving, caring, Kumbaya-singing group. 

Steve decided that he would just watch and be more mindful about what was actually going on with Bucky and go from there. He didn't want to press, especially after the day that they had both had. Steve still wasn’t running at peak performance and he had only witnessed Bucky’s recent shit show--Bucky had lived it. 

Steve decided that he would decide if he needed to push about the pills after he watched Bucky a little more. He was so reticent about sharing any personal information that Steve didn’t want to upset him by forcing the issue. 

They finished their food. Well, it was more like Steve finished and Bucky just said he was done and jumped up to clean before Steve noticed how much of his soup was still left. He knew that hyper focusing on his stomach was only going to make it worse. He was stressing about it already and it was only two in the afternoon. Bucky washed and Steve dried again. It was an easy rhythm, a rhythm born of spending years as kids doing the same thing in each others’ house when one of their moms told them to. 

After the kitchen was clean, they went back to the couch and sat down. Steve got back up almost as soon as his ass hit the couch. He walked into his bedroom, leaving a very confused Bucky in the living room to wonder what was going on. He came back almost immediately with his tablet. He could have asked JARVIS to pull it up on the big screen, but he wanted to do it more hands on. Maybe even get Bucky to play with the tablet a little. 

As Steve sat down, he said, “Let's fix this couch situation.” Pulling up the web browser on his tablet and typing in “overstuffed couches,” Steve held the tablet so that Bucky could see, but he would have to move closer to be at the right angle to really see what he was looking at.

Bucky wasn’t stupid, he knew that Steve was trying to get him to sit a little closer, but he couldn’t help it, there really wasn’t a way for them to shop for furniture without really looking together. So Bucky scooted ever-so-slightly closer to Steve. 

Bucky was shocked at what was on the screen. He watched as Steve scrolled through what was there. “What about this one?” Steve asked, blowing up a picture of a huge tufted brown leather sofa. It had this big piece on the end that looked like he could almost lay down on it. There were other parts that had recliners. As well as a place to put your drink in between some of the seats. It looked like it was definitely built for comfort.

“I like that. But we shouldn’t settle for the first thing we like. Isn’t there a bookmark thingy?” Bucky asked. 

“Hey, what about a trip to the furniture store?” Steve asked. “It will be awful to have to order things and have to have three dozen couches delivered and picked up while we try to choose one.” Steve explained. 

Bucky couldn't help but be hopeful about getting to leave the tower. He didn’t want to be a prisoner. He had been a prisoner for the last seventy years and he was tired of it. 

“I would like that, but if you are just fucking with me trying to get my hopes up to lighten the mood. I will hate you,” Bucky seethed. 

Steve honestly was in shock. He didn’t think that Bucky would ever think that he would do something so mean to him. But he figured that after seventy years with Hydra, Bucky wasn’t really a good judge of interpersonal relationships. But it still hurt him in a way that he wasn’t expecting, to find out that Bucky thought he would purposefully bait and switch him like that. 

Bucky just glared at Steve and watched for any hint of deceit about the shopping. He knew that he had hurt Steve with his comment about making sure Steve wasn’t fucking with him, but he had to say it. He wasn’t stupid, and Steve kept insisting that he was going to be part of the team. To be able to play basketball with them and go on missions. Fuck, even leave the tower. For Christ sake he wasn’t even able to get the goddamned elevator to take him to his floor so he didn’t have to see Steve staring at him anymore. What was this asshole playing at saying that he could leave the tower?

Bucky just wanted to be done with this day and go hide in his room. 

“I am going to go read a book,” Bucky announced, getting up and walking to go get a book and then marching to his room and shutting the door with more force than was necessary but distinctly not a slam. He wasn’t a fucking child, he didn’t slam doors. But he made it clear he was done with Steve’s shit.


	11. Chapter 11

Bucky sat angrily on the bed. He wanted to trust Steve, he honestly did. He just couldn't believe that he would ever be able to go out of the tower again. It was too much to hope for. He knew he was being a petulant child, but he was hurt. 

It was so easy for Steve to say his pretty words, to talk about trips to the store, to talk about going on missions. It was just talk, Bucky knew that. Bucky knew that Steve believed that he would be allowed to take Bucky places, but he wasn’t stupid, he knew that would never happen. Hell, even Steve’s own team didn’t trust Bucky enough to let him off Steve’s floor without a babysitter. 

Eventually the government would find out that he had been located, and they would want to do God-know- what with him. He didn’t know what they would have in store for him, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. How could Steve be so naive? Didn’t Steve see that he would never be able to do the things he kept talking about?

As he sat there, he tried to calm down, but his anger was overwhelming. He wanted to go back down to the gym and run himself into exhaustion. He knew that wasn’t an option, though. Sure, he could ask Steve to take him, but then he would have to explain why he wanted to go back down there, and that sounded like a conversation he didn’t want to have to deal with, so he just sat there with the book he’d grabbed resting beside him. After a while he gave up and grabbed the book. He read the title. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He didn’t really have anything better to do, so he started reading. 

Bucky had never been a big reader as a kid. He had always been more fond of being outside and playing stickball in the street or walking over to the park, but Hydra had never let him leave the base, and only let him go outside if they wanted him to train for something specific. They had let him read books, though. Mostly fantasy books. They didn’t want him to learn about current events, he figured, looking back. 

He had read all the great fantasy books over the past seventy years. He had read the Harry Potter series before. It seemed vaguely familiar, but he didn’t really remember the plot. Good thing that Steve had an overly developed sense of organization because he hadn’t really looked at what he’d grabbed other than that it matched the books by it and it was the farthest from the right so he figured it was the first book in whatever series he was grabbing. 

Bucky laid on his back, head propped on four pillows, reading for a few hours. He was shocked at how into the book he was. It was a kids’ book after all, but he was loving it. He was startled when heard a knock on his door. 

Steve had just stared after Bucky when he’d left. He didn’t know what he had said that was so upsetting. Of course Bucky was going to be able to leave the tower. He wasn’t a prisoner. He was a guest in the tower. He was Steve’s best friend for fuck's sake. Did Bucky honestly think that he would be stuck there, not able to go around the tower by himself? To never be able to leave? Sure, they were wary, but that was a short term thing. Steve would get them to come around. Bucky would prove that he was worth trusting. 

Steve was dumbfounded for a good ten minutes before he got it together and started thinking of how to fix this. He hadn’t really understood that Bucky thought he was trading one prison for another. Bucky honestly thought that this was going to be just like Hydra. Well, not just like Hydra. Hydra had made him their killer (and maybe something else, so awful Steve’s mind reeled at the thought). Now Bucky seemed to think he was just going to be some pet that lived in the tower. Some pampered cat to be content to be waited on and have things brought to him. Steve knew that Bucky would hate that. He would want to go and do for himself. Steve had to do something to fix this. He had to prove to Bucky that he wasn’t going to leave him locked in the tower forever. 

Steve decided on a course of action. He just needed to talk to the rest of the Avengers. Bucky had been free for almost two months when Steve found him, if he had wanted to kill Steve, he would have long ago. Steve was a creature of habit--he ran in the park at the same time every morning. He wouldn’t have been hard to kill if Bucky had meant him harm. It would have been as easy as stealing a car and hitting him, or a high-powered rifle fired from a rooftop, or a handgun with a silencer in the park up close and personal. Bucky was the best assassin in the world, he didn’t need to be invited into the tower in order to kill Steve. 

Steve also knew that it had been just prudent to not let him wander around the tower. However, it was obvious Bucky could have killed any one of them a dozen times if he had wanted. 

“Hey, JARVIS is everyone in the building?” Steve asked. 

“Yes Sir,” JARVIS replied. 

“Can you ask them to come to the communal floor?” Steve asked. He could have sent a text himself, but JARVIS could do it effortlessly. 

“Yes Sir,” JARVIS answered, having already sent the texts out before he replied to Steve.

Steve got up and marched out of the living room toward the elevator. Pushing the button and getting on, JARVIS didn’t need to be asked where to go, he just went to the communal floor. Steve did his best to remain calm and walk, not march, off the elevator and into the communal living room. There was generally someone in there watching something or getting something to eat or just hanging out in case someone else came in. Steve had never had a big family, but he imagined that this was what it was like to have one. Just hanging out in the living room, hoping your brother or sister walked in so you could just hang out with them. 

When he got there, Clint was sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in his lap and a movie on TV. Clint waved and paused the movie. 

“What did you want to talk about, Cap?” Clint asked in a calm, relaxed tone.

“I want to discuss our houseguest,” Steve answered, trying not to give an attitude as he did. This has to be productive, he repeated over and over in his mind. He didn’t want to alienate one of the only people in the house who hadn’t really been against Bucky from the get go. He didn’t want Clint on the defensive because his opening gambit had been being a dick. 

Steve walked in and sat on the big sectional on the sofa. He revelled in how much more comfortable it was than his own. Damn, he was oblivious, he thought. 

“What are you watching?” Steve asked, trying to keep the conversation going. He hadn’t had this much trouble talking since he had been dragged out on a double date with Bucky when they were seventeen. Steve had gotten stuck with a girl with no personality because her sister wasn’t allowed to go out with Buck unless she went along, too. It had been awful.

“Hatari. You should watch it Cap. John Wayne catches animals for zoos. It’s a classic,” Clint explained with a smile playing at his lips. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one,” Steve said.

“Of course not, it came out long after you were frozen, mid sixties I think. But after you were frozen for sure. We should watch it some time for movie night,” Clint said happily. 

The thought of movie night made Steve smile, he loved those nights in the tower. He loved being there with all of them as they laughed and talked and made bad impressions of movies and actors. 

As they sat watching John Wayne try to rope a zebra while sitting on top of the hood of a jeep, Steve couldn’t help but relax. 

“We will have to watch The Quiet Man, too. I forget sometimes that you aren’t actually in your 30s. I watched with my Dad almost every movie the Duke ever made, but you didn’t do that. He wasn’t really a thing, then,” Clint commented.

“I saw a bunch of his movies growing up, but we didn’t go real often to the shows, but I know who the Duke was,” Steve chided.

As they talked, Bruce wandered in. “Hey is that Hatari?” he asked as he sat down on the couch, reaching fist deep into the popcorn. 

“Yep!” they said in unison. 

Then Natasha came in. She was rather non interested in what they were watching. She just sat there and let them have their fun without comment, engrossed in her Stark phone. 

Sam entered next. He walked straight in and sat on the couch, eyes glued to the TV the whole time.

“Nice, Hatari! I haven’t seen this since I was a kid,” Sam said as Clint passed the popcorn around. 

Tony joined them last. He had been watching from the monitors. He figured that Steve wanted to talk about letting Bucky have more freedom. Tony was smart enough to know that keeping Bucky locked on Steve’s floor would only work for a week, if that. But he didn’t want to let a trained killer run freely through the tower. He wasn’t stupid enough not to see that he was already doing that with Natasha and Clint but they weren't quite as fresh as Bucky was. Tony was being responsible. He was protecting Pepper and the rest of his little family as stupid as that was to say. 

Tony had been keeping tabs on Bucky and Steve via JARVIS. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on them in the gym, but when JARVIS told him that they were sparring he had pulled it up on the monitors. He was only doing it so that he could keep an eye on the situation. He wasn’t trying to invade. Honestly, he wasn't, but that didn’t change . That he knew what had happened. He didn’t want to feel bad for Bucky. Buck was a killer, but after having seen the way that Bucky had panicked, he was a little more forgiving. Actually, he didn’t want to be more forgiving, he wanted to hold on to his anger and fear, but something had changed in his mind and now he just couldn’t 

Tony walked to the chair that was really the only seat left. When it was movie night they would just sit on the floor or pile up on the couch, but this situation demanded a serious face to face. “So what gives Capsicle?” Tony asked trying for playful but failing. 

Steve looked at Tony and could see that the anger of the day before was all but gone. The echoes of it still there, but the heart of it gone. Steve wondered if Tony had been watching them in the gym, or if JARVIS had told Tony about it. But there was so much less tension, and Tony wasn’t one to drop his anger unless there was a reason.

“I want to talk about Bucky,” Steve announced like they didn’t all know that. Steve scanned the room to gage what the rest of the Avengers thought of that statement. He couldn’t really read what they were thinking about it, but he had to try. 

Then Steve just launched. He didn’t want to give himself time to overthink this. “I know that you all have concerns about him being here, but I need you to try and give him some freedom at least here in the tower. JARVIS can monitor him. We can make it so that he can only go to the communal floors and the gym. We can have it so that everyone is notified if he is moving around the tower. But we need to try to give him some freedom. 

“He could have killed us all a dozen times over while he was free. He is the best killer in the world. Now he thinks he’s traded one set of captors for another. He thinks that he will spend the rest of his life incarcerated here, at least until the government comes to take him to do tests on him,” Steve explained, not really seeing the looks on the rest of the team's faces as he talked.

“I understand where he is coming from. I felt like that when I turned myself into SHIELD, I thought I was just trading one set of captors for another. It doesn’t change that he could be a risk. I also agree that if he had wanted to kill any of us he could have. I know I could kill any of you and have to come into the tower to do. Some of you really need to work on not being such easy targets. I still don’t know if trusting him to freely come and go as he pleases is what’s best. You know that SHIELD is going to want to him as is every other dark, black ops agency in the world. Not to mention all the other countries both friend and foe who will want him for their own projects. We aren’t just protecting ourselves from him, but him from what is out there looking for him and that’s not even mentioning Hydra.” Natasha said

As Steve looked around at the faces before him the look on their faces said that they were agreeing with what she had said. They were no longer blindly saying he must be contained. Or maybe Steve was finally listening to what they were saying. 

Sam spoke up as Steve was surveying the situation. “I don't think he should leave the tower yet. It’s not that I think he is a risk to us or really anyone in particular, it’s just if he leaves, especially with one of us, the World Security Council is going to hear about it and I don’t think we are ready for them to know that he has been found yet. I think we need to have JARVIS keep the footage of him; I also think we need to have a lawyer or group of lawyers come in and start working on his defense. We need to be ahead of things when they do find out that we have him. I do think that we need to give him more freedom in the tower. We all need to get a chance to interact with him. We will probably all end up testifying on his behalf.”

Tony watched what was going on. He didn’t want to have to admit to anyone that he had witnessed what happened in the gym between Steve and Bucky, but knew they would all wonder what changed his mind. Tony knew he would have to tip his hand at least to Steve. “I have been watching some of the footage for Mr. Barnes and I think that we should allow him to move around that tower freely as long as where he is going is empty or the resident of that floor is awake. JARVIS can manage that. That way there’s no sneaking up on people, but he can still move around on his own. I will also call my legal team and get them here and working on a defense. 

“Considering all he’s been through,I think we need to get a therapist to start working with Bucky.” Steve started to open his mouth as soon as Tony stopped talking long enough to take a breath. Tony saw it happening and told Steve to hush. ‘Steve I know you are thinking that I am just being harsh on him because I don’t like him, but if we’re going to play the diminished capacity card in court we need to have a mountain of data; and on that note Bruce I want you to drop everything and start looking at the science of that chair. Anything you need to buy in order to do your research just tell JARVIS. He will have a blank check for any research items you need that we don’t have; and Sam I want you to start doing whatever you think you need to do for background on POWs. We want to have as much as possible when SHIELD and the World Security Council find out about Mr. Barns. I will also have Pepper start working on a P.R. angle. She managed to get me out of enough jams that she will know the best possible way to spin this.”

Everyone sat in awe of how much Tony’s opinion of Bucky had changed, but none more so than Steve. He had his suspicions of what exactly Tony had seen when he was watching security footage of Bucky. But he wasn’t about to say anything to the group. He was slightly mortified that Tony knew. He didn’t want to share that with the group. 

“I think it is prudent to not have Bucky on anyone's floor unless they are awake, but I also see the need for both his peace of mind and so that we have lots of ammo when we have to take this to the World Security Council that he start to interact with us regularly. We need to be able to vouch for his character. I have the feeling that they are going to want us to be on trial as much as him. God knows they want to do testing on The Other Guy and Steve enough,” Bruce explained. 

The rest of the group didn’t really have anything to say other than they were okay with him moving around when they were awake or not on the floor. After the courageous conversation happened, everyone kind of milled around the communal floor talking and getting back to watching the movie. Tony was the first to make his exit. Steve got up and followed him out. 

“Hey Tony hold up,” Steve said, jogging down the hall as he walked to the elevator. 

“What’s up Capcicle?” Tony asked, trying his best to be flippant. 

“I wanted to talk to you about what you said earlier,” Steve said as Tony pushed the button to go back to his lab. 

“Well, I say a lot of things. What exactly are you referring to?” Tony said, knowing full well what Steve wanted to know, and not wanting to have to talk about it. As much as he enjoyed being a bit of an ass to Cap once in awhile, this wasn’t one of the times that he was just trying to give Cap a hard time. 

“You know good and well what I am talking about. You said you had been watching the footage of Bucky and me. What did you see?” Steve asked, his voice going a less closer to a yell than he had been going for. 

“JARVIS was keeping tabs on you and him since he got here, so when you went to the gym JARVIS informed me as much. I wasn’t watching till he mentioned that you and Mr. Barns were going to spar. I just watched to be sure you were safe. I swear.” Tony said with an honesty and vehemence that Steve wasn't expecting. 

“I didn’t mean to see what happened. I honestly didn’t, but I can’t un-see what I saw.” Tony said honestly looking ashamed for having watched the scene play out. 

Steve just stood in the elevator after hearing what Tony had said. He didn’t know what to do with the fact that Tony knew. Bucky didn’t act like he wanted Steve to know. He damn sure didn’t act like he wanted to talk about it. But Steve didn't want to betray Bucky by not telling him that Tony knew. The elevator dinged and Tony went to step off, he stopped when Steve stood there and continued to look dumbfounded. 

“Steve, are you getting off here or going back to your floor?” Tony asked, not knowing what to do with Steve. Steve had been his hero as a kid. The man he always wanted to grow up to be. He wanted to be an adult. The man he would follow into the gates of hell. To see the man that he trusted to completely be so lost was hard for Tony; he didn’t know what to do.

Tony had never been good at interpersonal relationships. Sure, he could charm the pants off someone in ten different languages, and talk his way out of most trouble, but that didn’t mean that he knew how to deal with feelings. He had no idea how to handle people he actually cared about, people who would be around longer than a couple of weeks. Tony wanted to run and hide from this conversation, but he knew he couldn’t. He knew when he opened his mouth to tell everyone that he agreed with Steve, that Steve was going to want to talk about this. There was no way but through it, so that’s what he was going to have to do. The man who pretended he had no heart was going to have to bare his to the man who was nothing but heart. 

Steve didn’t know if he should talk to Tony. In all Tony’s talk there were very few people who cared more about the people in their life than Tony did. He just didn’t want to betray Bucky. ‘Was it really betrayal if Tony found out through no fault of his own? Steve stepped off the elevator and followed Tony into the lab. It looked more like a gallows walk than it did two friends chatting with one another. 

Steve looked like a lost puppy as he walked into Tony's lab. Steve flopped down on the couch that Tony had in the corner of his lab for when he passed out after days of working on a project with no sleep. Tony was actually getting a little worried. Steve was always the team's rock. He was the one who always had an answer to the problems they were facing. Normally Steve’s suggestion was simply doing the right thing, but for Steve to look so rudderless was frightening to Tony. Tony had had a father whom he loved and who loved him, but Howard had always been better at his inventions than he was in dealing with people and that meant that in Tony’s world the man that could do no wrong who could literally do anything had always been Steve. It was childish he knew, but it still felt like when he had been a kid and finally saw that his father wasn’t actually Superman all over again. It was shocking to see him as the lost and rudderless, he was when it came to Bucky. Sure, Steve had been lost when they knew that Bucky was alive and they couldn’t find him, but this was different, then it had just been we have to find him and keep him from Hydra. This was a true lost. 

This was the strongest person that Tony had ever met looking like he wanted to run and hide. Captain America didn’t run and hide, not from the Nazi’s not from Hydra. Steve Rogers didn’t do that, but here he was, looking like there was nothing he wanted to do more than turn tail and run. Tony wanted to be the one with the answers for once in his life he wanted to be the one who could help, but his answer has been so often to throw money at a problem and make it go away. Bucky’s past wasn’t a problem that throwing money at would fix. Yes, paying for lawyers and therapists would help, but it wouldn’t change the look on Steve’s face. It wouldn’t make the strongest man he knew not look like he was going to cry. 

“What do I do Tony?” Steve asked, looking like he was a breath away from crying. Tony could hardly look at him without seeing the shine on his eyes. Tony walked over to the couch and sat down so that he was close enough to touch but not touching. He and Cap had never really touched. Tony didn’t like to touch people or even be handed things by anyone but Pepper. Steve had always been conscious of Tony’s quirks, and when Tony had gotten to the point where he would have been okay with Cap touching him it was already so ingrained in Steve not to do so that Tony didn’t know tell Steve that he was okay with it. Not without it being a “thing”. Steve would want to talk about it and Tony would have to talk about his feelings and he just didn’t know how. Steve was a touchy person. It had been hard for him to respect Tony and not just touch him out of blind reflex. Tony wanted to touch Steve and give him comfort in that way. It was how Steve acted with the team. He touched them and hugged them. Tony knew that a hug would be the easiest way to comfort his friend, but he just didn’t know how to do it. Steve thought he would think it was out of pity and not something that Tony just wanted to do for his friend. They would have to have that conversation at some point, but now wasn’t the time. Steve had too much on his plate already. 

“I don’t know Steve. You could talk to him about it, but you ancient ones don’t much talk about your feelings so I don’t know how that would go. I think you should just be there for him and try to get to the point where he doesn't think you are going to hurt him,” Tony said fighting the urge to put his hand on Steve’s back. 

“I just don’t want to see him hurt, and I don’t know if my bringing it up will be for the better or the worse.” Steve’s sad lost puppy look kicked up a notch as he talked. 

“Why don’t you talk to him about tonight’s meeting? Why don’t you just tell him about having more freedom, and that we think he needs to go to therapy to help with his defense for his inevitable trial. You two were best friends before the war, weren’t you? You were more than friends, right ?” Tony asked, looking at Steve pointedly. Tony had heard all the rumors, he was pretty sure that Captain America had played for the other team. Well, maybe not team, maybe it was just Bucky he played for.

“We were more than friends, yes.” Steve said looking bashful. He was red all over looking like he had just been caught red-handed with his dick in Bucky’s ass as he answered. 

“It’s not the thirties anymore Captain Old Fashioned. You can be gay or straight or somewhere in the middle. The world won’t come to an end because you like cock. Hell, you can’t even get kicked out of the Army for it anymore. Hello, you two can get married. It’s all good.” Tony said with a snark and a smile. It was great to have a reason to banter and play with Steve. They both needed it. 

“Don’t you think it has to be hard to not only have to have lived it, but to have your oldest friend see you melt down. To have to see the look of knowing in the eyes of a man that used to look at you with lust in his eyes. When I got back from that cave I tried to hook up with a couple of girls that I use to hook up with before, and I couldn’t do it. To see the look in their eyes when they saw me naked. The look that said I know what you use to be and now I see what you are now. It was more than I could handle. Hell, I couldn't even let Pepper see me with my shirt off for the longest time, and we had never been like that before. I'm sure she wished I had but I was well, you know.” 

“A dick,” Steve blurted. 

“Yeah, that.” Tony said. The look on Tony’s face looked ashamed, but not that Steve knew. It was more that he was a ashamed for how he had treated everyone. “Just give him some time. I know you want to carry the weight of the world on your very broad and capable shoulders, but you can’t carry this for him. You have to let him heal on his own. You have to let him do it. You can help but you can't just do it for him. Even though you would take this burden if you could,” Tony said, trying to show that he did actually know what he was talking about with his honest eyes. 

Steve nodded and just watched Tony as he talked. He figured that Tony was probably right, but he couldn’t stop wondering when the hell Tony stopped being the silly playboy who hopped through life with very little care and very little seriousness. It shocked Steve more than he wanted to admit that having seen Bucky like that had effected Tony so strongly. 

Steve sat in Tony’s lab for a while just talking and getting his mind off Bucky. He suspected that Tony was doing it to help keep Steve giving himself a heart attack with all his worrying. After an hour or two, Steve could see that Tony was fading. He wondered how long it had been since Tony had really slept. Steve stood up and went to leave. As he got to the elevator door, he glanced back to see Tony standing at the workbench, tinkering with some half-forgotten project. “JARVIS can you tell Pepper that Tony would like to see her in the penthouse in twenty minutes. And JARVIS ignore any command with from Tony telling you not to tell her to come.” Steve said with a look of smug satisfaction. Tony honest to god huffed like a child who knew better than to throw a tantrum but still desperately wanted to have one. Steve smilled and slipped into the elevator, trying to hang onto the light-hearted way he felt for siccing Pepper on Tony. 

Steve rode the elevator down to his floor. He thought about what Tony had said to him. Mostly he thought about not being able to just fix this. He couldn’t punch anything to make this better, it just had to play out. He wanted to fix everything for Bucky but he couldn’t no matter how much he wanted to. All he could do was just be there for him. As he got off the elevator, he took a deep breath and walked into the apartment, looking around but Bucky wasn’t there. He just went to the living room and sat down heavily on the couch, picking up his sketchbook and started tinkering. He just wanted to do anything to keep his mind off Bucky and all the heinous things that must have happened to him while Hydra had him. Steve actually started paying attention to what he was drawing and it was Tony sits on the couch talking to him.


	12. Chapter 12

After a few hours of reading, Bucky thought he had better brave going back to the living room. He wanted to hide in his bedroom forever, but he was thirsty. He’d had a few sips of water from the tap in the bathroom, but he wanted cold water, and he wanted more juice. As much as he didn't want to be out there, he knew he had to do it sometime, and it might as well be now.mig

Bucky poked his head out the door to see Steve in almost the same spot as he had been the last time he’d poked his head out. Steve was once again sketching. Bucky remembered that Steve had done that a lot as a kid. He dimly remembered that Steve had wanted to go to art school before the war. He wished that Steve had just stayed home and never joined the Army. Sure Bucky would have died either in that lab with Zola or still be the winter soldier, but Steve would have met someone else, and would have had a life, had kids and maybe a wife. Steve would have had a chance at a real life. Now he was stuck playing nursemaid to a broken man who he would never let go out of pure stubbornness, and because it was the “right’ thing to do. 

Bucky walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass and poured himself some ice water. The whole ice in the door thing was a little weird, but he had seen it before so it wasn’t that strange. Hell, if he wanted to be honest, having anything but a big wooden box with a block of ice in it was strange. He knew that these were infinitely more efficient, but it was still jarring to see it just sitting there all modern and easy. Half the things that he thought were easy when he was a kid would be seen as terribly difficult for people in this world. The icebox was just one of the things that was considered stupid and old fashioned. Hell, if Bucky had even talked about it with anyone but Steve they would think he was crazy. 

It wasn’t until Steve heard the ice clinking in the glass, that he noticed that Bucky was up and moving. It spoke to how safe he felt with Bucky, that him moving around the apartment didn’t set him on edge. If it had been almost anyone else, he would have noticed as soon as his unconscious tuned into the slightest stirring. He had stayed with the rest of the Avengers on missions, and if they got up to pee, he would startle awake and be on alert, but it was Bucky so he allowed himself be more relaxed. He didn’t realize that he was so on edge with the Avengers until he was around someone with whom he was comfortable. He looked up and saw Bucky watching him as he drank the glass of water in one go and then drank another, again in one go. Steve thought back to how sweaty they both had been in the gym when they were sparring, and he was so glad that he had gotten Bucky a bottle he could now carry with him. Steve prayed that Bucky would never feel like he had to hide in his room again, but a part of Steve knew that hope was not realistic, which broke his heart all over again. 

As much as Bucky wanted to run back to his room and hide again, he knew that eventually he would have to see Steve again. He walked to the living room carrying the bottle of apple juice with him, and his glass of water. He was still so thirsty, but Steve was watching, and he would scrutinize his every movement, so he stopped standing there chugging water like he had been in the desert for days. Thanks to the Hydra testing he knew that he was far from getting sick due to dehydration, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thirsty. He sat down once again in one of the fugly red chair chairs with the fringe on the bottom.

Steve noticed Bucky had chosen a chair on the opposite side of the room, but at least he was in the same room as Steve, so he counted it as a win. He wanted to tell Bucky about the fact that he could move around the tower on his own, but he didn’t know how to broach the subject, so he just went back to his sketching. 

Bucky had caught Steve looking at him when he drank, so if he wanted to talk, he could. Steve was working on a sketch of the Alps. It took Steve stopping his sketch, and going back to it to realize that it was the mountains they had ziplined into right before Bucky fell from the train. As much as he didn’t want to remember what had come next that day. Flying down that cable; going so fast, that had been one of coolest things he had ever done before or after. He wondered if he would like skydiving; sure he had jumped out of planes, but that was on a mission, and generally he was so focused on the mission that he wasn’t able to think; ‘hell I am about to jump from a freaking plane’ till after the mission was over.

“Hey Buck do you want to go skydiving with me? I think it would be fun to jump from a plane when I wasn’t doing any stupid, dangerous stunt?” Steve said not even looking up from what he was doing. As soon as Steve said it, he knew that he had messed up, and risked upsetting Buck with his talking about doing things outside the tower. He knew he was going to have to talk to Bucky about being able to move around the tower now, and worry about the consequences later. 

“Hey Buck I want to talk to you about something.” Steve said, not giving Bucky time to respond to the original question. There was no way but through it, so he blundered on. “I talked to the rest of the team about you having more freedom. They are okay with you moving around the tower on your own. They are still a little nervous about you being able to sneak up on them, so JARVIS will announce if you are going to a floor they are on, and you won’t be able to access a floor they are on if they are asleep, but other than that you can move around. You won’t have access to the floors that Stark Industry is on. That is mostly because we all agreed, that we aren’t ready to have to tell the World Security Council that you have been found, and that you are staying with us. 

“We also want to have a legal team come and talk to you and start working on a defense for you. There is going to be some kind of trial--there are too many governments that want you brought to justice for there not to be one--and we want to make sure that we are ready for it when it happens. The best way to do that is to control when it happens, so we don’t think you leaving the tower right now is a good idea. If you go by yourself it might be okay, but if you go with any of us there is just too much risk that the reporters will see us and then we can’t control the timing,” Steve said in a rush. He wanted to get it out before Bucky had a chance to get all upset again. 

Bucky sat there dumbfounded as he listened to Steve. They were actually going to let him have some freedom! He had seen the way the reporters followed Steve and the others around. There was no way that Bucky was stupid enough to think that he wouldn’t be spotted immediately by the paparazzi if he left with Steve, but he had never imagined there might be a better option than just letting everyone find out that he was “back among the living.” He knew there would be a trial, and the best case scenario was to be hung for treason. The US was the best option, but he never intended to be taken alive. They may have a public trial, but they wouldn’t actually kill him, even if he was sentenced to death. He would be taken to some secret base and be tested like a lab rat, as they tried to create a new batch of super soldiers. They would never be willing to give that up. But Stark had money and a team of people who controlled his image. They actually might be able to get him pardoned or something. He had to admit that hiding till they were ready for the official Bucky unveiling might actually be a good idea. 

Steve blundered on, “The other thing I think might be a good idea is that you start therapy. The team thinks that with the Stockholm Syndrome, and the memory wipes, and that you were tortured as a POW for seventy years, that a diminished capacity defense, might be the best way to get you pardoned. I think the best way for us to prove that, is if someone who specializes in dealing with people who have been in that kind of situation is an integral part of the defense plan. The longer the therapists have to work with you, the more they can speak to your state of mind in court,” Steve explained in a rush, trying to say his piece before Bucky could jump in. 

At that, Bucky shot up from his chair knocking it over in his haste. He rushed over, and got right up in Steve’s face. “What, you want me to sit on some fucking couch, and tell a perfect stranger that for seventy years I was used as a fuck toy for literally, thousands of people! You want me to tell them about the parties, where they would line up and rape me till I passed out! Do you want to know that it takes almost one hundred and fifty different dicks up my ass for me to pass out? Do you want to know that they would make me count them as they did it? Or that I can keep track of time in my head, counting seconds into minutes for almost nine hours? Did you know, that you can’t go away in your head, if you have to keep track of time? You have to stay present for everything that is happening to you!

“Do you want to know how they punish you, when you lose track of time. Do you want to know what is worse than having hundreds of people run a train on you? You want me to tell people that they would fuck me with anything that would make me scream? That when they couldn’t make me scream with their cocks; they would start using other things, like their whole hand, or that they would fuck me two at a time? How about the night that I lost track of time and they shoved a metal pole up my ass; that they pushed it in so far, that they had to do major surgery to repair the damage?” Bucky screamed inches from Steve’s face, so angry he was spitting as he yelled. Steve just sitting perfectly still, tears silently sliding down his cheeks as he listened. 

“You want to hear about how they would break bones, and laugh as I sobbed and begged them to stop? That they ripped my finger nails off over and over again? How about that they liked to restrain me, but I could break ropes, so they would use nails driven into my hands and feet; or that they always wanted me to change positions while they were fucking me, so they would have to rip the nails out, and then put them back in over and over again while they were taking turns with me?” Bucky continued to shout at Steve.

“How about how I know exactly what kind of damage I can sustain, while still remaining functional, and at what level I can function, depending on how damaged I am? Did you know that I can run almost two miles at full speed with a broken femur? Do you want to know how they discovered that was exactly how far I can run? Well let me tell you, when I would stop, they would rape me with a stun baton. 

“Speaking of stun batons; I can sustain a nine minute shock at five times what would kill a cow, and that’s rectally mind you, before I pass out. You want to know what that feels like? You want to know exactly how long it took for me to lose control of my bladder, and bowel, when they did that? Speaking of bladder and bowel; how about how long I can hold my bladder? Well Stevie, three days while drinking the amount of water I need to be healthy, and nine days if I am only drinking enough to stay at minimal levels to function, in combat conditions? How about that I know exactly how much water I have to have before my kidneys shut down?” Bucky’s voice was so low at this point, as he tried to hold himself together, that Steve had to strain to hear the tragic words. 

“Would that be fun for you to hear? You want to know that I have to force myself to wipe my ass after I shit, because I can hardly handle touching myself there; or how about that when I got upset earlier in the gym, when I took my shower I raped myself because I couldn't handle not being punished for how I freaked out? That I did it without thinking about what I was doing, I just did it to myself on autopilot. How about that I freak out when anyone is behind me, or that I lose it when someone touches me? That I have to bite my tongue to keep from spinning around and punching people hard enough to kill them when they bump into me in the street. Or how about that I freaked out because I thought you were going to rape me. I thought you would do it, because you wouldn’t think it would hurt me, that you knew what a piece of shit I truly am and that I would deserve it? 

“Or best yet that I can’t even eat normal food? That I spent all night shitting my brains out because you think it’s funny to feed me fucking pizza, something ridiculously greasy and heavy. How about the fact that Hydra did that to me more than once? That they would leave me tied to a bed laying in my own shit, because they would feed me huge amounts of food knowing full well that it would make me violently ill and that I wouldn’t be able to hold it.” Bucky wailed, tears streaming down his face inches from Steve’s face watching as Steve cried.

“You don't get to cry over this! Not. Fucking. I.n Front. Of. Me. I never wanted you to know any of that shit. I never wanted you to know what a filthy fag whore I am. I know you already pity me. I know you have so much fucking guilt over me being taken that it is killing you. You think it doesn’t make everything so much worse for me, to know that I am hurting you by how fucked up I am? You were the love of my life, you think it isn’t killing me you sitting there crying? You want to cry; fucking go do it somewhere else. Fuck you! Fuck you! I hate you and your fucking life here--all perfect, and happy with people who care about you. I will never have that. I am fucked up, and you and I know both know it. You and I both know that I am broken beyond repair. You know what? I’m not broken, broken things can be fixed. I am ruined!” Bucky slammed his mouth shut having realized what he had just said, spinning and running to his room. This time he very much did slam the door when he shut it.


	13. Chapter 13

Steve sat there for a while just crying. He didn’t know what to do. It was obvious that Bucky didn’t want his comfort, but Steve didn’t know what to do with himself. He certainly knew Bucky wouldn’t be coming back out tonight. He knew he needed to be in his room if Bucky happened to come out. Bucky would freak out if Steve was just sitting there crying. It was all Steve could do to get up, grab his water bottle and go to his room. 

He didn’t even bother to shower or change clothes. It was just too daunting a task, so he just shucked his clothes, got in his bed, curled up and tried to sleep. Mostly he just laid there, tears silently coursing down his face, and pictured the unspeakable things Bucky had described. How could a human being handle that kind of abuse? He guessed that it was the serum that took care of the physicality of it, but the serum wasn’t what kept Bucky’s mind from breaking. Steve just wasn’t willing to accept that Bucky was as broken as Bucky seemed to think he was. If he had been that broken, Bucky would have killed himself as soon as he was free, but he hadn’t and that was due to Bucky’s character. Everyone said that Steve was the one who would sacrifice anything to do the right thing, and protect the innocent, but Bucky was just as good and kind. It was just that people didn't give him the credit that he deserved. They would just say that it was because he was following Steve, but Steve knew better; he knew that it was as much who Bucky was as it was Bucky following Steve into whatever Steve was doing because it was the right thing to do. 

What Steve didn’t know was that Bucky had wanted to kill himself. He had desperately wanted to kill himself. He had wanted to from the first time he remembered the things he had done to innocent people for Hydra. The only reason he didn’t attempt anything was he was terrified he wouldn’t die, and that he would damage himself beyond repair in his attempt. Steve didn’t know that Bucky spent a huge part of his day thinking about how to kill himself and actually die and not just maim himself. 

As Steve laid there, he knew he had been right about Bucky having been tortured in a sexual way. That's the nature of that torture Bucky had been forced to endure. The torture was just so much worse than he had ever dreamed--he hadn’t been prepared for what Bucky had told him. To imagine that it had been institutionalized rape. The worst he had initially imagined was that maybe a few of the most reprehensible Hydra operatives had raped him, he’d never dreamed that it had been just a part of his daily life. Not that they had had open parties with the sole purpose of raping for your best friend when he so clearly hurting, himself. He also never dreamed that his guilt was a: noticed by Bucky and b: that his own pain was causing Bucky pain. What was he supposed to do? How do you pretend that you aren’t hurting for your friend who is in so much pain? How do you pretend that it isn’t killing you to see him so devastated. Steve just knew that he couldn’t hide how hurt, he was by what had happened to Bucky. How was he supposed to pretend that knowing just a part of what had happened to Bucky wasn’t killing him inside? Steve had always worn his passion and his feelings on his sleeve for all the world to see. It had been what made him pick fights with the bigger boys when he was a kid. He would see them picking on the smaller, weaker kids and he couldn't' just stand by and do nothing. Not when innocents were being hurt. It had been a huge part of why he wanted to join the Army. He wanted to stop the Nazis from harming all the people they were killing just for not having as much power as they had. 

The next thing he thought about was that Bucky honestly thought Steve was going to do the same thing to him, and worse, that Bucky thought Steve wouldn’t see it as wrong because it had happened before, Steve and Bucky had been sexual before and also he had been raped before. Steve wondered which one was what Bucky thought would make Steve raping him okay in Steve's mind. He didn't know what was the worse of the two options, that He had Steve had been sexual and therefor Steve would just take what he want, or that because others had violated him that Steve would think hurting Bucky was okay. Then he started to think about how Bucky felt like he was ruined. How could he think that he was beyond repair? Steve was despondent. He didn’t know what to do to help his friend--or himself. 

Bucky had said he loved him. Steve had always loved Bucky: he knew that Bucky loved him, but he never thought that after the war, they would be anything more than friends. Sure, they’d had sex before and during the war, but Steve expected to go home after the war, meet a girl and get married like he was supposed to do. There had never been an option to be with Bucky. They could have carried on an affair for the rest of their lives, but if Steve was being honest, he would never have been able to do that. He would never do that to someone he loved. He could have married Peggy. She had known about him and Bucky. She might have been willing to let him continue with Bucky. She had loved Bucky as well as Steve, not in the same way she loved Steve, but she had loved him like the annoying brother you don’t like but you loved. He knew that now he could have openly had both Peggy and Bucky, if they had both wanted Peggy and Bucky could have also had each other. They could have lived in a house and slept in the same bed. He knew that people did things like that now. Hell, Tony, Pepper and Bruce had that type of argument now. Tony had fallen in love with Bruce very quickly when Bruce joined the Avengers. They had begun a relationship soon after, and Pepper had soon fallen just as hard for Bruce as Tony had fallen for him. Steve never knew if Pepper's love for Bruce would have ever happened without Tony bringing him into their life and their bed. He didn't it would have, but he was happy for his friends. The change in how people could love one another had been one of the most jaring things to see when he came out of the ice. There were no openingly homosexual people in the thirties. There were people like Bucky and him, people who would do things, but no one would risk being put in jail for having an openly homosexual relationship. There was no option to be with a man like that. People could have a dalliance, but not spend their life and love with someone of the same sex. That idea had never even crossed his mind before the ice, it just wasn’t an option, and now that society would have allowed it, Bucky wasn’t in a place to have that kind of relationship with him. Steve didn’t know if Bucky would ever be able to allow Steve to touch him, let alone be intimate with him. Steve doubted that Buycky would ever be able to handle Steve touching him without warning at all let alone to open himself up to being sexual with anyone. 

Last night he had actively made Bucky sick. What bothered Steve was not just that it happened, but that Bucky thought he would hurt him on purpose. Worse was Bucky thought he would enjoy hurting him in any way, let alone by making him physically ill. As Steve lay there thinking, it dawned on him that Bucky had never really said that he’d wanted pizza. Bucky had even seemed a little worried about the pizza comment as soon as Steve had made the comment. Bucky had never really asked for more food. Steve just said’ here, let me get you some more,’ and kept feeding him pizza until the boxes were empty. Some part of Steve knew that saying no to Hydra wasn’t an option. He wondered if Bucky had been able to say no to anything that he did or that happened to him in the last seventy years. Even without the wipes they would have made it clear that No wasn’t a word he could use about anything they had wanted from their little Weapon. Did Bucky think that he couldn’t say no to Steve? Did he think that the simple act of saying no would lead to Steve hurting him? He had said that he thought Steve would rape him, did he think that Steve would punish him for stating an opinion or saying no to something that Steve had said he wanted? Steve had wanted to hug him and kiss him from the moment he’d seen him, would Bucky have just let him do it if he had tried? If Steve had pushed for sex would Bucky have just gone along and let Steve essentially rape him without saying anything? 

The more he thought about it, he had pushed Buck into eating more and more food without even thinking about it. Even when Bucky had mentioned his stomach being tender, Steve hadn’t really done anything to make Bucky think that he cared, or show that wanted to do anything other than make it worse. Steve sighed and punched both arms into the mattress. Shit, he was an idiot!

Steve wondered if he should grab the meds he had for his own stomach issues and give them to Bucky. It was just that Bucky had made it clear he didn’t want Steve around right now, and he didn’t want to push Bucky, and make things worse than they already were, by so blatantly pushing him to do what he wanted yet again so soon. Steve wondered how he could give Buck what he needed to feel better without making him more upset and causing more harm.

After a truly ridiculous amount of deliberation he decided that he would leave the pills on the counter, and a note about the dosage that worked best for him, and then he would ask JARVIS to tell Bucky where he could find the meds if JARVIS thought that he needed it. Steve jumped up and grabbed the meds and went to the kitchen. He could do this much for his friend. It wasn't much, but at least it was something. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something, and something was better than nothing. 

“Hey Buck, I wanted to give you these pills in case you needed them. The dosage that works for me is to take sixteen pills the first time I go, and then eight pills every time I poop after the first dose until I stop going. The box says not to take more than eight, so for me that would be 64, but I have taken up to one hundred and twenty and not had any problems. If you need anything, have JARVIS ask me. I didn’t want to crowd you, but I didn’t want you to suffer if it was something I could fix,” Steve wrote thinking that it was too little too late, but at least it was something. Steve filled his water bottle and set it down by the note and the meds. Then he thought about it and added a postscript.

“P.S. Take the water bottle and try to stay hydrated, and JARVIS can get you anything else you need. You just have to ask him, and he will get it to you tomorrow. I used to get these wipes that make cleaning up less painful, but I haven’t had issues lately, so I ran out and didn’t get more; we can have JARVIS get some tomorrow.”


	14. Chapter 14

Bucky ran to the corner of his room farthest from the door, and curled up on the floor with his back to the wall. He just needed to know there was no way that anyone could sneak up on him. He felt like a child, but he couldn’t bring himself to move his back away from the corner. As soon as he was on the floor, the floodgates opened, and the silent tears turned into to gasping sobs. He couldn’t believe he told Steve all that shit. He never wanted anyone to know, but least of all Steve. He had accused Steve of trying to hurt him, and even though it felt like Steve wanted to hurt him; the part of his brain that wasn’t ruled by his fucked up emotions knew that Steve would never actually try to hurt him, or make him sick on purpose. Steve was nothing if not honest, true, and desperate to do the right thing. He was like a puppy--sweet and loyal and likely to follow you around hoping to be able to make things better in any way. Steve would do whatever he thought was right, and raping Bucky was not what was right. Shit, how could he be this fucked up? 

Ruminating on all this just made him feel more crazy. He wanted to go tell Steve that he was just upset, and that he didn’t really think that Steve wanted to hurt him, but the thought of having to see the look of sadness and pity in Steve’s eyes made him want to scream and hit things. With his newfound freedom he could go to the gym without a babysitter, and hit things until he felt better, but the idea of having to walk to the elevator, and down to the gym unprotected was overwhelming, and just made him want to cry more. 

The next thing Bucky knew it was dark and the clock said it was 9:30. It hadn’t even been dinner time when he had come in here. He thought about how fucked up he was that he could just go away in his head for hours at a time. There was a part of him that knew that spending too much time thinking about his exact level of his insanity would just make him more upset, and he would never get up off the floor. So he got up, grabbed his book, and threw himself on his bed. He wanted to lose himself in the world of magic and wizards, and Harry being a hero. He didn’t want to think about real life, just the world in the book he was reading. The next thing he knew it was 11:30, and his stomach was starting to complain. He made a mental note to take the book with him to the bathroom, maybe it would keep his mind off how much he hurt, and how disgusting he felt. He read for a while longer before he had to get up and visit the bathroom. 

It wasn't as urgent as it had been last night, but he still had to rush to get there. He had managed to remember his book. It was oddly less awful when he had something to keep his mind off the pain, and how disgusting he felt. When he got up and started to wipe he was very glad that he had healed enough that it didn’t feel like sandpaper was rubbing on his hole as has wiped himself clean. As he walked back into the bedroom he heard a voice talking to him. It didn’t sound like Steve, and he impulsively began to panic that there was someone else in the apartment with him. 

“Mr. Barnes. Mr. Barnes I am JARVIS I am the artificial intelligence that runs the building. I know that you have heard Mr. Rogers talk to me. I am not sure how much you know about me. I can see and hear everything in the building. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I am just here to protect and help. Mr. Rogers has left a few things on the counter for you. I must advise you that you need to drink something so you don’t become dehydrated. I will also inform you that Mr. Rogers isn’t in the living room, he is in his room and awake, if you would like me to get him for you, or ask him anything I can. He hasn’t been informed of your health status. I try not to be obtrusive, just to help.” JARVIS explained.

Bucky’s first impulse was to panic and lash out at the AI, but he didn’t seem like the AI was trying to cause him damage. “Do you report to Stark?” Bucky asked as his panic at the disembodied voice flared. 

“Somewhat Mr. Barnes, I tell him the things that he needs to know, such as the fact that you are not being violent, and I will inform him if you become violent. I didn’t tell him that you were ill, nor did I tell him or Steve about your shower habits. I will inform Steve if I feel that you are at risk of causing permanent damage, or of dying, but other than that your health and personal decisions are your own. I did inform Mr. Stark that you and Steve were going to spar yesterday. He chose to watch, and make sure you were not trying to cause Steve real harm,” JARVIS explained.

“Stark was watching when we fought?” Bucky asked, panic rising in his voice to match the panic he was feeling. 

“I must inform you that Mr. Stark may be a lot of things, but he wasn’t trying to spy on you to hurt you. He was doing his best to protect Mr. Rogers. I will not betray your trust unless I feel I must, but Mr. Stark can access anything in the tower regardless of if I inform or not. I will not betray him anymore than I will betray you, but Tony may understand you far more than you or he would like to admit,” JARVIS said.

Bucky wanted to rage and be angry, but the AI seemed like he was being honest. It was hard to admit it, but he wasn’t as mad as he wanted to be about JARVIS watching him. He had been under surveillance for the last seventy years. This bothered him sure, but not as much as it had when it was done without his knowledge, and by people who were doing it to use it against him, and not a machine who just seemed to be doing his job. While Bucky stood there thinking, JARVIS clicked on again. 

“Mr. Barns I must request that you at least drink some of the water Steve left out for you, by my calculations you are becoming dangerously dehydrated.” 

“Sure,” Bucky said as he walked out to the kitchen and grabbed the bottle of water, pills and the note Steve had left for him. As Bucky read the note, he couldn’t help but feel bad for the way that he had treated Steve. He had hurt Steve’s feelings, partly because he was upset, and it just kind of happened, and partly to hurt Steve because he was hurting and he wanted to lash out at him. 

Bucky walked back to the bedroom, sat down on the bed and popped sixteen pills out of the pack and took them. He drank most of the water in the bottle, then decided that he was probably still really dehydrated, and he walked back to the kitchen to fill up the water bottle again, and then went back to his room. He didn’t want to take orders from a machine, but he did see the logic in doing what it had told him. He could feel that he was getting dangerously dehydrated and at risk of actually harming himself and that would just cause more issues with Steve. 

Bucky managed to lay down and sleep for a while before, he was awoken by a brutal cramp, and he had to run to make it to the bathroom in time. This second round was much more painful. His asshole was burning already, and the cramps were much more painful and intense. Bucky just wanted it to stop. He hated feeling like this. He hated that when he was sick like this it made him feel like he was back with Hydra. He couldn’t help but think about all the times that he had been forced to feel like this, because they thought it was funny to watch the Winter Soldier shit himself, and sob and beg to be allowed to use the toilet, they had always enjoyed the power that they had over him when he was like this. In the field and even when they were training the Winter Soldier was a force to be reckoned with, but when he was like this he was a sobbing, begging, sniveling, screaming, mess, The worst was when he did have an accident, they would make fun of him for being such a weak and pathetic little bitch. As if shitting himself wasn’t humiliating enough, they had to laugh, call him names, and tell him he was disgusting, they always thought it was so fun that they could make him shit himself. He never understood why him being sick was so amusing and to them all, even as the teams aged and were replaced the rapes never stopped, but that was enjoyable, but he could never understand why they always thought he pooping himself was worth seeing. It was messy and smelly. He figured that some of them had a fetish for it, but were seeing someone poop themselves and the bed that common a fetish that so many had had it?

There had never been a win with them; not when he was being used for his secondary purpose. They always wanted him to scream; so it had been, his only form of rebellion to remain silent, it was all he was allowed. The only thing was, that just made it so they would hurt him worse and worse up until he would scream, so they could make fun of him. They would make fun of him and laugh when he did scream, and beg for them to stop hurting him, or let him go to the bathroom, whatever he asked for or needed was denied. No matter the consequences to him or the room around him. He remembers a night they had him laying on a bench and they had fed him more than ten of them would have eaten and they left him there even when he had diarrhea so bad it sprayed out of him and all over the kitchen. How was that enjoyable he wondered. They seemed to like it when he begged the best, but it just seemed so much worse to have them make fun of him, than to have them hurt him. It seemed to be better to just deal with the pain silently, and not give them the satisfaction of hearing him whimper and beg; even though they would just become more and more violent until he couldn’t be silenced. He was just too proud to start off a begging, sobbing, mess. He had to try to be strong even though there was a part of him that knew that it made it worse than when he sobbed from the get go. It was just the only thing he could do that would save what little pride he had left. 

Bucky had tears in his eyes when he wiped this time. He just wanted to feel better. “Hey JARVIS can you get me some of those wipes? I like the ones with cucumber and aloe best,” Bucky requested, feeling ridiculous for asking, but he just hurt so much, and Steve had even admitted that he had used them, so maybe it didn’t make him weak for wanting something that would soothe the burning and rawness of his bottom. 

“Of course Mr. Barnes.” JARVIS replied. 

Bucky had read Steve’s instructions, but he was just so wrung out and emotional, that he took another sixteen pills when he got back to the bed. It was far less than Steve said he could safely take. He just wanted to be done with shitting at least for tonight.  
Bucky was beyond shocked when he woke up and it was after seven A.M. He hadn’t been sick again. His stomach was tender, and he thought he may have to shit again, but it wasn't nearly as terrible as the night before had been.

He lay in bed and read for a little while, and waited for his stomach to make a decision. After about an hour his stomach decided what it was going to do, and he had to go back to the bathroom, but it wasn’t nearly as urgent, and it was actually shit and not just liquid coming out. He guessed this was what they meant by the terms ‘healthy shit” and ‘good shit.” He took another dose and stepped into the shower. It felt good to get clean. He managed to clean his asshole without freaking out. Wow, he thought, maybe talking about things really did make things better. All the books that he had read about dealing with sexual assault had said that talking about it no matter how awful would actually help. Maybe, Steve was right and he should see the therapist. He was a stubborn ass, but he wasn’t stupid, and he knew there would be a trial, and maybe visiting with a shrink would actually help him get pardoned. Maybe being such a fucked up wreck would make them not hang him. Maybe rape aftermath, was a defense for being a traitor, and a war criminal. He doubted it, but what did he have to lose? It wasn’t like he had a shred of pride left to lose. 

When Bucky finished his shower, he dried off and went to the kitchen. Steve was in the living room, looking suspiciously like he hadn’t slept at all last night. He felt bad about how he had treated Steve, but he didn’t know how to broach the subject. How do you apologize for deliberately destroying your best friend?

He just couldn’t talk to him about it. It would just lead to him freaking out again. He knew that much. If he opened his mouth about yesterday he would start bawling; so he did the only thing he could think of to do that would things better between them. He walked around the back of the couch and hugged Steve from behind the couch so the only part of him that would be in contact was his chest and arms. He hoped that he could handle the contract. He thought he might be able to if he was initiating it, and not in a position that Steve could trap him. 

The hug lasted only a second, and Bucky was already starting to freak out before he released, but he had managed to touch Steve. He knew that Steve would be so overjoyed by it that he would forgive him. Well, Bucky knew that Steve was Steve, and he would forgive him no matter what. He had forgiven him for trying to kill him and his team on the bridge, and for trying to punch him through the floor of the helicarrier, he had forgiven him for trying to kill millions of people with project in sight. Steve was loyal and kind to the point of his own undoing.


	15. Chapter 15

Steve had tossed and turned all night. He didn’t think he had slept at all for the whole night. He had asked JARVIS if Bucky had needed the pills. JARVIS had said that he had gotten the meds, and was drinking water to avoid dehydration, but that was all JARVIS would tell him. Steve felt like he was a monster for having paid so little attention to a man he claimed he loved. How could he not have noticed that he was making him physically ill by what he was doing to him? He had given him so much food. He had essentially force fed Bucky to the point of sickness, because he wasn’t paying attention. He wondered what Bucky had been eating before he came to the tower. He wondered if he was feeding him two, three, ten times as much as he’d been eating before he got there.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He wanted to go to the living room and watch TV. He had been shocked at how much he liked to watch TV. He had liked the radio before the war, but the TV was different. He loved that he could turn off his brain, and just sit there and do nothing. It was his favorite thing to do when he couldn’t sleep. He had never been a good sleeper, but after the serum, he needed so little sleep, that it just got harder and harder to sleep. It didn’t matter that he didn’t need sleep, the rest of the world did need sleep, and that meant that there wasn’t a whole lot to do at three in the morning. He didn’t want to be in the living room if Bucky needed to get more water or whatever, so he stayed put. 

Eventually he gave up on trying to sleep, and went to grab his tablet in the living room. As soon as he had his tablet he all but ran back to his room. He could watch something on his tablet.It wouldn’t be the same as watching TV in the living room. but he could veg out. He pulled up Leverage, Clint kept saying he would love it, so he started watching it. Steve was shocked with how much he was enjoying it. The tagline said it all. “Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys.” He was oddly invested in the story. He normally turned off his brain when he watched TV, but with this show he didn’t want to just turn off his brain and let it play. He wanted to see what happened to everyone. He loved how broken everyone was, and yes, they were growing as people, but they weren’t really fixed; they were just learning to function better as a team and as people in general. After a while he decided that he would try to get Bucky to watch it with him, so he turned it off. Then he was back to not knowing what to do. He laid there and checked his email and when that didn’t take as much time as he had hoped; he decided that he should learn a little bit more about what was going on with Bucky. 

Steve pulled up his web browser and started looking up what were the best foods to eat when you hadn’t eaten in awhile. He found a lot of stuff on eating disorder recovery sites. He also saw that a lot of people said that stress made their stomach issues worse. He wondered if there was anything he could do to help Bucky be less stressed. Steve decided to look and see if there was anything online about how to combat stress.

He learned that there were lots of things that he should be encouraging Bucky to eat. He was reading about the BRAT diet when it dawned on him that bananas weren’t on his shopping list. “JARVIS can you add bananas to my list?” Steve kept reading and then thought he should just tell JARVIS to add all the things that were recommended for diarrhea to his shopping list. “JARVIS can you do some research, and add whatever foods are the easiest to digest to my shopping order? And there isn’t really a need to double my list. Oh, and can you add some of those electrolyte popsicles to the list as well? I bet Bucky would like them.” 

When Steve had read about a hundred articles about eating that mostly said the same things, he started looking up ways to de-stress. The first thing he found said that laughter was a great way to de-stress. He thought of how to make Bucky laugh. “JARVIS, can you add the top ten sitcoms to my Netflix cue?” 

Lots of sites said that walking or working out was a great way to de-stress. He wondered if that would work for Bucky since he didn’t seem to be able to work out if it wasn’t at full tilt. He decided that it wasn’t his place to decide, and he would bring it up to Bucky. Almost every site also said that meditation was a great way to de-stress. He wondered if he should ask Bruce if he would be willing to teach Buck to meditate. Lots of people also said a bath was a great way to de-stress. Steve decided to add bath stuff to his shopping list. “JARVIS, can you add bath stuff to the order for tomorrow? I don’t have any idea of what is out there, so can you just order a little bit of everything for Bucky to try?” Steve asked, thinking about if there was anything else he should ask JARVIS to get. 

“Sir, you know I am programed with all the medical information from all forms of healing around the world. I have western medical databases as well as Eastern. I believe that you may also need to look into ways to de-stress yourself. Your heart rate is elevated as is your blood pressure. You will be no help to Mr. Barnes if you are ill yourself.” JARVIS said. 

Steve couldn’t help but start to fume over what JARVIS said. He had no right to take energy away from trying to help Bucky to worry about himself. It wasn’t him that was so lost and hurt. 

When it was finally after eight, he thought he could get up safely, and go to the living room. He wanted to sketch again, but his mind wasn’t really there so he thought he would read. There were several books he had wanted to read. So many more books were written every day than had been, when he was younger. He always felt stupid when people talked about books that were such a part of the cultural memory that he didn't even know existed. No one ever talked about the books he remembered from his childhood. They were old fashioned and out of style. He had been wanting to read The Hunger Games. Almost everyone had read them or at least seen the movies, and he was always so lost when people talked about them. He grabbed the first book and a cup of coffee and started reading. It was frighteningly dark, especially for a young adult book, but it was very compelling. He couldn’t help but love Katniss from the very being, when she had sacrificed herself for her sister. It had been a very Steve like thing to do, and that made him love Katniss even more. 

Steve was surprised when Bucky came out of his room. He had been reading for a couple of hours. Bucky looked far better than he had the morning before. Maybe the pills had helped. He wanted to ask, but he just didn't know how broach the subject without starting a fight with Bucky. It was so hard to know what to do; it felt like he was always walking in a mine field now, before the fall his interactions with Bucky had been easy and flowing now they were tricky and stressful. Steve had never been as shocked in his life as he was when Bucky walked over, and gave him a hug. It only lasted for a moment, but it just seemed to say so much. Steve knew it was hard for Bucky to hug him. He could feel how tense Bucky’s arms were, and how awkward the position must have been for him, but it just seemed to say ‘I’m trying please don’t hate me. I know I hurt you,’ in that simple action. It gave Steve so much hope, that he was doing the right thing with Bucky.

Steve was just going to start talking to Bucky about the foods he should eat, and questioning how much he had been eating before he’d come to the tower, But JARVIS announced that the things that he had ordered had arrived. “Well, let's go get it. JARVIS can you have them bring it up to our floor and leave it by the elevator?” 

“Of course Mr. Rogers,” JARVIS replied. 

After about twenty minutes, JARVIS said that all of the things had been delivered, and that the delivery men had left. Steve got up and went to open the door. Turning with an incredulous look on his face. “Well, Buck come help me carry stuff. It’s mostly for you.” 

“Mostly for me? What the hell did you order?” Bucky asked looking shocked and trying not to sound ungrateful. 

“Well, I got you some clothes, and some stuff for the shower, and stuff for the bath. I got you a computer, a phone, and a tablet. I got you a water bottle like mine. I got you some shoes. Pretty much everything you needed.” We can always get you different stuff if you don’t like it,” Steve said praying that he hadn’t overstepped.

“Mr. Rogers, the tablet and computer and phone aren’t in this group of things. I did take the liberty or getting Mr. Barnes the things that he would need for all his electronics. Cords, a laptop bag, a cell phone case, but Tony wanted Mr. Barnes to be using highly encrypted electronics like the rest of the team, so they will take a day or two before they are ready. He wants to make sure that no one can possibly compromise Mr. Barnes’ security through his electronic.” JARVIS explained. 

Bucky just looked angry and frustrated. “He just wants to make sure he can spy on me,” Bucky snapped, unable to hold his temper.  
“I assure you personally there is no bugging software on the machine. I will also inform you that anything that goes out over the internal network in the tower is viewable by myself and Tony. Neither of us makes it a point to look at anyone’s personal information. It is just that security is too important to leave those things to chance We’ve got to insure that no one is leaking information, or getting viruses and malware and leaking information inadvertently.” JARVIS said in his no nonsense way. 

“Well, at least you are being honest. Thank you JARVIS, and tell Stark thank you for making sure my security is protected,” Bucky said doing his best to sound sincere, even if he was rather frustrated about being spied on in yet another way. 

Steve had not been surprised by Bucky’s first response. It was the second comment that shocked Steve. Bucky hadn’t ever really liked Howard, and Tony didn’t give Bucky a lot of reason to like him. Tony was generally an ass even when he would do anything in the world for you. Hell Bucky seemed to detest JARVIS as well, but it seemed like Bucky was actually being nice to both Tony and JARVIS. He wondered what had happened last night when JARVIS had told Bucky about the things Steve left on the counter. “Were you, dare I say, nice to JARVIS and Tony?” Steve asked, trying to hide how shocked he was as he asked. 

“JARVIS and I have reached an understanding. He’s not my favorite person, but I am tolerant of him. As for Stark, he is being given less disdain until I get to interact with him and decide if he deserves my hatred or not.,” Bucky said offhandedly as he started rummaging in the overflowing shopping bags. 

Steve stood in the kitchen feeling a little shell shocked. What could have possibly happened that Bucky would be even halfway willing to be nice to Tony even by proxy through JARVIS? Bucky was milling around the kitchen looking through all his newly aquired things. He had several piles going on on the table. “What are you doing Buck?” Steve asked, trying to figure out what Bucky was doing. 

Bucky touched the farthest pile from him. “Keep.” Then the middle. “Not sure.” Then the closest and biggest pile. “Return.” Steve hadn’t really imagined that Bucky might have wanted a voice in what he was going to wear or use. It seemed totally disrespectful of him to have just ordered things, expecting Bucky to use them. Steve felt like a shithead for the umpteenth time that day. 

“Mr. Barnes, just make a pile in the hall, and I will have them returned, and I will order new things for you to look at. Just give me parameters, and I will be better able to get you things that meet your requirements” JARVIS intoned. 

“I don’t really know what I want. I don’t know if I can really give you parameters to work with,” Bucky said still ransacking the shopping bags.

“Just show me the things you like and I will try to find more like them.” JARVIS said.

“Where are the cameras?” Bucky asked, looking around the room. 

“I can see pretty much everything in any room. Just hold it up and I will be able to see.” JARVIS explained. 

Bucky started to go through the things he liked, and then when he would find something new that he liked he would hold it up so JARVIS could see that as well. After about fifteen minutes Bucky had finished the clothes, and was starting back through the things he wasn’t sure about and moving them to the other two stacks. When he was done, he told JARVIS thanks, and started attacking the non-clothing items. 

“What is this stuff?” Bucky asked, sniffing at what looked like a huge bar of soap that was purple, blue, pink and teal. 

“That is a Bubble bar. You put it in the net bag that is in the bag as well, and hang it under the water when you run a bath. Mr. Rogers thought that you would benefit from taking a bath, and asked me to get you things to make the bath more enjoyable. Aside from the bubble bars there are bath bombs, and some lotions and face masks. I got you a little bit of everything. Just tell me what you like and what you don’t like, and what smells and colors you enjoy the most and I will get you more of those things” JARVIS informed him, seeming like it was the most normal thing in the world to be explaining how to take a ridiculously girly bath to a highly trained assassin.


	16. Chapter 16

Bucky wasn’t sure what to make of Steve deciding that he should be taking baths, or that he should be taking baths that were all smelly and bubbly, but he remembered how much he had enjoyed taking baths as a kid. Hydra had let him sit in the hot water in medical a few times; when he had been badly damaged and had a mission soon and they needed him to be at peak performance. Just because he could function damaged didn’t mean that they wanted him that way. They needed him to complete the mission, and the best way to insure that was to have him as healthy as possible. It frustrated him, though, that Steve was making decisions like that for him. Bucky couldn’t quite hide the sneer that flashed across his face as he thought about the bath stuff. Maybe Steve had a bathing fetish he thought as he sniffed at the bath things. He wanted to try them yes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t frustrated at Steve for just making decisions for him.

Steve watched the way Bucky froze, becoming more and more agitated as he stood. He didn’t know if apologizing would make it better, or if it would just make things go from bad to worse. Steve decided that apologizing via explanation was the best way to handle it. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I did some research. I read a lot and people seem to have more issues with their stomachs when they are stressed, and I looked at the suggestions for de-stressing, and lots of people found taking baths was a great way to de-stress. I didn’t mean to overstep, I was just trying to help,” Steve said, hoping it would calm things down, not be incendiary. Bucky seemed to still be furious. His eyes angry as he snapped his head up to glare at Steve.

Bucky was still fuming after Steve explained his reasoning for ordering bath stuff for him. He didn’t want to admit that it did seem like a good plan, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. He wanted to be allowed to take care of himself, but he wouldn’t have thought about taking a bath as a way to calm down, nor would he have even known that such an array of things existed for adding to the bath. 

“What else did you discover in your totally invasive research?” Bucky snapped, feeling bad for being an ass, but not bad enough to apologize for his outburst. 

“Well,” Steve said warily, wanting to share what he had learned, and being pretty sure that it was just going to anger Bucky more. “I read up on what foods to eat, and what food not to eat when you are having issues with your stomach. I also had JARVIS order them for you. Bananas are supposed to be great for your stomach, and also great for stress relief, something about the potassium in them. It also said that introducing foods slowly so you can kind of see what your system can handle. Just because most people can tolerate something doesn’t mean you will be able to handle the same things. I also learned that almost everyone thinks meditation is a good way to de-stress. I know Bruce meditates daily, he would probably teach you if you would like to learn,” Steve explained in a rush, hoping against hope that it would calm Bucky and not just frustrate him more. 

“Do you think I am a child?” Bucky spat. “I read all about how to introduce foods to my diet. I have a pretty good idea of what I can and can’t eat.,” Bucky raged. As an afterthought, he said. “I didn’t really look at ways to help with stress, so thank you for that.” He was still angry and frustrated, but biting Steve’s head off wouldn't really help make him feel better. 

Steve decided to take the win for what it was, and move on. “I did want to talk to you about one thing,” Steve said, not really stopping to get approval from Bucky before he continued. “You don’t have any electronic devices yet, but you should have more than you could dream of in a day or two, and I wondered if you would like to have Tony set you up a secure email account, so I can just email you things like the articles about stress relief, and foods instead of having to talk to you about them. I didn’t mean to insult you, but I don’t really have a way to share them with you other than just telling you about them, and maybe reading them in private and when you are calm would be easier than me telling you a thing.” Steve stood looking worried after he had said his piece. 

“That may not be a terrible idea. I feel like you are treating me like I can’t take care of myself, but I am pretty sure that I am overreacting. I just can’t get past the thought that you are judging me, and trying to fix me. I know how stupid that is. You are just trying to help, I know that, but it still makes me want to yell and scream and punch things. I feel like you don’t trust me to take care of myself. I know you don’t think that, but it feels that way, and I can’t keep myself from getting angry about it; no matter how well intentioned you are. At least if it’s in an email I can think about things before I just yell at you for overstepping,” Bucky explained, losing some of his steam as he talked. 

Steve just listened to what Bucky had to say. “You know I never meant to make you feel like you’re an idiot child. I’m just so lost... I want to try to do what little I can make things better.” Steve said, looking like he was going to cry or throw up as he talked. 

Before Bucky had a chance to say anything else, Steve changed the topic, and started talking about all the things he wanted to show Bucky. “Hey, I started a show it’s called Leverage, and I think we should watch it. It was really good, I started it last night. I think you would like it.” Steve tossed the last words over his shoulder as he walked to the living room and grabbed the remote. 

Steve flopped down on the couch, and turned the TV on, pulling up Netflix, doing his damnedest not to look and see if Bucky was following, or if he was going to go hide in his room again. Steve was happy, but surprised when Bucky came and sat on the couch with him. He was still sitting as far away from Steve as he could get while still being on the couch, but he was back on the couch, and not in the chairs on the other side of the room, so they were making progress. Once Bucky was seated Steve hit play and turned his attention to the show. He had to fight the urge to glance over at Bucky every five seconds, but after a couple of minutes he was totally engrossed in the show and quit micromanaging his friend.

When they finished the first episode, Steve paused it and stood. “I am going to grab something to eat. You want anything?” Steve had to bite his tongue to keep from making suggestions, or telling Bucky that he really needed to eat something, and just walked to the kitchen, and started poking around looking for something to eat. He debated what to grab and settled on the fruit salad and two forks. He set the whole bowl on the coffee table and hit play again. He did notice that Bucky was nibbling pieces here and there. Steve tried not to smile, and went back to watching. 

After the fifth episode, Steve was starting to get sore, and had to get up and move around. “Hey, I’m going to the gym, all this sitting around is making me stiff.” He was leaving it open to Bucky to come or not; without specifically inviting him. 

Bucky stood and walked to his room. “I’ll be ready in five if you don’t mind the company,” Bucky said over his shoulder as he walked to his room. He grabbed his new navy blue workout clothes, and the blue swim trunks with the white stripe that JARVIS had gotten for him. He wanted to swim, but he also wanted to try out the treadmills. 

The ride to the gym was silent, yet comfortably so. When they hit the gym, Bucky stepped on the treadmill, set the screen for some place in South America, and started to run. He ran, jacking up the pace every mile or so for what seemed like forever, completely ignoring Steve. He wanted to see if Steve would hover, and mother hen him, or just let him run and do his own thing. To his shock and enjoyment Steve went to something that looked like a staircase and just focused on walking up an endless flight of stairs. Bucky couldn't think of anything more boring than perpetually climbing a staircase, but to each their own, he thought. 

When the pre-generated program finished, Bucky got off, and then it dawned on him that he didn’t know where the changing room was. He walked over to Steve and asked where he could change. 

Steve was startled when all of a sudden Bucky was standing there talking to him. It took longer than Steve wanted to admit to get with the program, and figure out what Bucky was asking. “I'll show you, there are a bunch of rooms over there.” Steve said as he got off the stair machine, and led Bucky to the changing room. “Are you going to swim?” Steve asked as they casually walked into the changing room. 

“Yeah, I thought it might be fun.” Bucky said, looking around the room trying not to let on how nervous he was to be changing in an open room on a communal floor where anyone could walk in on him. 

“You mind if I join you?” Steve asked, seeming to not notice Bucky’s discomfort as they stood there. 

“No.” Bucky said, trying to keep his voice calm. 

Steve walked to the wall of lockers, and opened one, and grabbed something out of it, and started to strip. It was all Bucky could do not to freak the fuck out, and run from the room when Steve stepped out of his shorts. Being in an enclosed space with a naked man was making him want to throw up, he could taste it moving up the back of his throat. He knew that Steve wasn’t going to just grab him, and bend him over the bench, and shove into him dry, but he couldn’t help being afraid he was going to do just that. He was torn between putting his back to Steve so he could pretend to be alone and get changed or face him so he could make sure that Steve wasn’t coming for him. Bucky knew that putting his back to Steve would make him infinitely more vulnerable, but he wouldn't have to see Steve just standing there naked and ready to fuck him. 

Bucky finally decided that the fear of Steve raping him was far better than Steve is looking over and seeing the look of sheer panic on his face. He knew that Steve would give him that sad pitying look if he saw the fear in Bucky’s eyes. Bucky changed as fast as he could, and walked out to the pool without looking at Steve, trying to get in the pool, so he would have an excuse to have red eyes other than that he was crying at the mere thought of being in the same room with a naked Steve. 

Before Steve had a chance to even notice Bucky was changed, and was out the door, jumping into the pool as soon as he was within range. Steve grabbed Bucky and himself a towel and followed him to the pool. 

Bucky was so relieved that Steve pretty much just ignored him, and let him swim, that he tried to calm down, and enjoy the water. It was better than he had hoped. The water smelled salty, not all chemically. The salt in the water helped him stay more buoyant and that made swimming easier. He flew through the water as he swam laps. It was an amazing feeling to be able to just move around in the water. It was one of the few places his back didn’t ache from holding up his metal arm. 

Steve did his best to ignore Bucky, and just swim, but he soon started to find it harder and harder to ignore him. Seeing the muscles in Bucky’s back and chest as he swam was causing Steve to become aroused. He could feel his cock hardening as he saw back and forth in the pool. Steve decided that if he stayed there he would end up hard enough for Bucky to notice and Steve didn’t think that would go over well, so he got out, and grabbed his towel as fast as he could trying he hoped to hide the fact that he was hard as a rock,, and went to change. Once he was dressed, and his hardon was fading. Steve had wanted to go into the bathroom and jack off the images of Bucky’s hard body glistening in the water. He resisted and went out and tried to catch Bucky’s eye. When he had Bucky’s attention, he said “I am going upstairs.” Bucky started to say something, and Steve just talked over to him. “You are welcome to stay here or come back up, but remember, you are free to move around as you wish.” Steve knew that wasn’t exactly true, but not exactly a lie so he went with it. He turned and walked out of the gym and to the elevator, leaving no time for Bucky to catch up with him. His cock had started to harden once again as he watched Bucky fly through the water. 

Steve wasn’t sure about just leaving Bucky in the gym, but when he told him to stay if he wanted to, the look on Bucky’s face was worth just about anything in the world. He looked so pleased, and dare he say it, happy. 

Bucky was shocked at how pleased he was that Steve had trusted him to stay in the gym alone. Sure, Steve had said he could move around on his own, but that didn’t mean that Steve wouldn’t come up with a reason to follow him around. But he hadn’t done that, he had left Bucky to do his own thing. Bucky felt something well up in his chest. He wasn’t sure what it was. He hadn’t really felt anything up numbness and anger for the last seventy years, but he was feeling something new. 

Almost as soon as he had that thought, a poisonous idea invaded his head that the others might come barging in and take advantage of him being here alone. They might be able to sneak up on him in the pool, his head was in and out of the water, so his hearing wasn’t that great, and he really couldn’t see the door for half of each lap. He wanted to get out of the pool and leave, but he didn’t want Steve to think that he couldn't handle being alone. “JARVIS, can you inform me if anyone is on their way to the gym?” Bucky asked, feeling much better that he wouldn’t be sneaking up on even if he was making him vulnerable in the pool alone. He had to admit the AI wasn’t that bad. He didn’t like to be spied on, but it seems like JARVIS was pretty much doing the same thing to everyone, not just him, so it didn’t feel as violating as it did when Hydra spied on him.


	17. Chapter 17

Steve went to their floor and began preparing lunch. He needed to get his mind off the Bucky’s body and beautiful it had been. Sure, there were scars and a slight oddness to the way his arm attached to his body but it was still a beautiful body to behold. He wanted to touch it to lick his nipples on his perfect pecs and slide his hands down his strong hard chest and back. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to feel Bucky’s mouth on him again. The sex between them had been so amazing. Bucky had always been so careful with Steve before the serum and after the serum it was Steve who had to be careful with Bucky, but now they were equal in strength for the most part and Steve wouldn’t hurt him physically by accident. He knew he couldn’t have Bucky that way, but seeing him so beautiful and wet in the pool made it hard to remember that he would ever be able to have that with him again. Maybe Tony was right and he should take advantage or one of the groupies and get laid, but that felt like it would be a betrayal of Bucky. He decided that cooking would occupy his mind enough to get him to stop obsessing about Bucky’s body and it would useful so he started trying to figure out what to cook. He didn’t know what Bucky would want to eat so he just started making some homemade soup for dinner.

There was no way that it would be ready for lunch, but it kept him occupied, and his mind off Bucky’s body. He got lost in the process of cooking, and didn’t know it had been almost two hours until he heard the door open, and saw Bucky come in. He hadn’t even thought about what to have for lunch, but dinner was well on its way. Steve thought, pleased with himself. 

Bucky was shocked to walk to the apartment, and see that Steve was cooking what looked like a four course meal. It smelled amazing. Bucky started to panic that Steve really was trying to overfeed him, to make him sick until he saw that it was just soup. Cooking, just like everything else in Steve’s life, he was incapable of doing anything halfway, so the ingredients were on every surface in the kitchen. It looked like the soup was not only enough to feed a family of four for a week, but that it also contained a little bit of everything in the kitchen. 

“Damn that smells good!” Bucky blurted, not meaning to say it out loud, but it just smelled so good, that he had said it before it even registered it was out of his mouth.

“Thanks,” Steve responded as he went back to cooking. It seemed that treating Bucky like he would anyone else was working great. Bucky seemed to be more relaxed and less angry. “I haven’t really even thought about lunch yet, are you hungry? He asked, not bothering to look at Bucky as he asked. “I wanted to make homemade soup for dinner, and that takes forever, so I started it first and I guess I kind of got caught up. Did you have anything in mind for lunch?” Steve asked as he busily added some seasonings to the soup. Tasting it again after they were in. 

“I was thinking maybe a sandwich. I am pretty hungry and my stomach seems to be doing much better. Thanks for pills by the way,” Bucky said looking sheepishly. 

Steve didn’t know what to say to Bucky, on hearing that he had not only needed them but that they had helped. He didn’t want to start a fight, but he felt like Bucky was opening the topic for a reason. “I am glad they helped. Let me know if there is anything else I can do?” Was all Steve said before going back to what he was doing. 

Bucky just sat down at the kitchen table and watched Steve cook. When Steve was happy with the soup, he started getting stuff out for sandwiches. After they had both gotten their sandwiches assembled--roast beef and mayo for Steve, thin slices of turkey on an open face roll for Bucky-- they went back to the living room to watch more Leverage. It was an enjoyable afternoon. 

A couple of episodes after lunch, Bucky’s stomach started to roll and cramp. He kept hoping that it would settle on its own, but after the third episode, it seemed like that was a pipe dream. He didn’t feel like he needed the bathroom, but he wasn't sure it was going to stay that way. Bucky started to panic. Sure, he had told Steve, that he had been sick the first night, and then again last night, but he didn’t want to have to deal with telling Steve that he was stupid. He had eaten the sandwich, he had asked for it, for fuck's sake, and now it was making him sick. He thought if he could just wait until he had to actually go to the bathroom, he would be able to bag it off as just needing the bathroom, and not being sick, if he was just in the bathroom for long enough to go, and not in his room for an hour waiting for his stomach to make its mind up about what it was going to do there would be no reason that Steve had to know he was an idiot who ate something that was now making his ill.

Bucky sat there through another episode and a half before he decided that he couldn't fight it anymore. He just had to tell Steve he would be back in a few minutes, and get up, and go to the bathroom, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. After another couple of minutes his stomach began to cramp in earnest, and he knew he had to go, and right fucking now. As he started to stand up, he felt it, he had started to shift. He didn’t think it was enough to show through his pants, but his underwear were filled. He had waited too long, and worse yet, he didn’t know if he could get to the bathroom before he completely lost what little control he had over his fucking useless asshole, and made enough of a mess that Steve would see it. 

Bucky couldn’t stop the tears from springing to his eyes, as he felt the wetness fill his shorts. As he took the first step he thought he might actually be okay until a particularly brutal cramp hit him, he bent over, and that’s when it happened, all at once as soon as he bent over, he felt a huge gush of liquid shit come pouring out of him; he felt it run down his legs, the thin knit gym shorts doing nothing to hide his shame. So much for Steve not knowing he had shit his pants, so much for Steve not knowing what a complete and total fucking loser he was, Bucky thought cruelly. 

As soon as he messed himself, he started to really cry, not just the couple of traitorous tears from before, but really crying. He couldn’t fight them, not with filthy brown putrid-smelling liquid running down the back of his legs, what was the fucking point? He felt so utterly disgusting, and worse yet, he was paralyzed, still afraid to try to get to the bathroom. As stupid as it was, when he had already made a mess all over himself, it wasn’t on the floor yet, he had looked, but if he took another step it would happen again, and then it really would be a disaster--his filth, his vile disgusting filth would be all over the floor. The white fucking carpeted floor. He just sobbed standing there not knowing what to do. He felt the cramps building in his guts, and he knew that the minor relief he had gotten, when the first gush had come out was quickly disappearing. He knew, that it wasn’t going to be long before he shit again, his stomach was too far gone now. He had lived out this fucked up scene far too many times to not know exactly what was coming next in this humiliating scenario. 

He just stood there with these huge wracking sobs, as he panicked about what to do. The sobbing wasn’t helping him hold it, but he knew from years of experience that nothing was going to help at this point. He was going to explode the moment he moved, and the only thing he could do was postpone the inevitable by standing still until even that didn’t stop inevitable onslaught. 

All Bucky could think about was all the times in his life he had been in this situation before. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from all-out shitting wherever he happened to be standing, and then whoever was in the room would start to make fun of him. Maybe they would want him to clean it up with his mouth again. The only thing he knew for certain was that there would be no stopping what was about to happen. He would shit, they would make fun of him, and then they would start to fuck him. Maybe they would let him finish shitting before they started to fuck him. It was always so much worse when they started fucking him before the torrent was finished. When he shits on them, then the punishments were so much more painful and diabolical than if he just messed up the floor. 

Bucky couldn’t help but think about the night with the strike agent. Bucky had been on a mission at a fancy dinner party. He had killed an ambassador in the bathroom. Bucky had sat there at the table with heads of state eating prime rib and baked potatoes and a salad and then dessert. The first opportunity he had to kill the ambassador had been after the meal was done. The Asset had left the party to follow the man into the bathroom, and had given him an injection that would make him have a heart attack in the next few minutes. The Asset had slipped out as soon as he was done with his mission, getting into the limo that was supposed to be taking him to the rendezvous just as he was getting to the point where his need to shit was becoming unstoppable. He knew he would shit soon no matter what he did. The Hydra woman who was his date to the party was laughing at him as the limo pulled out. He was in the back of the limo rocking and whimpering telling the driver to go faster. He knew that he was over an hour away from the safe house, and there was no way he could hold out that long, but he was trying. The other agents in the car with him were making fun of him and tell him all the things that were going to happen if he shit himself in the car with all of them in there. He had stripped out of his tux and black cummerbund almost as soon as he was in the car, hoping that getting the pressure off his abdomen would help. It made him feel better, but it wasn’t changing the fact that he could feel his rectum clenching in time with his heartbeat. He knew he was going to lose his battle any second. He did the only thing he could think of. He shoved his fingers inside himself hoping to plug the hole before it started to leak. Sometimes when the order had been to stay in one place they had let him plug himself. It had varying degrees of success. He knew that this was not going to work, at least not for long. But maybe he could at least make it to the safe house and exit the car. Everyone in the car was laughing at him, mercilessly deriding him, and one young agent who had never seen him get like this thought that maybe a cock would be a better plug. He pushed The Soldier onto the floor of the limo and got behind him. The rest of the car moved so that when he shit all over the agent it wouldn’t be on them as well, and sat ready to enjoy watching the agent get a brown shower. It might have worked if the stupid agent hadn’t actually fucked him. After about ninety seconds of movement in his rectum The Asset exploded all over the agent. The car erupted in laughter as they were pulling up to the safe house. The rest of the strike team got out of the car and went inside laughing and calling him names as they went. The agent who had gotten shit on drug the asset out of the car and into the house and straight into the bathroom. “Get in the shower and get on your hands and knees,” the agent shouted in his thick Russian accent, almost more embarrassed than angry. 

The Asset complied with the agents. He didn’t really have any choice but to do as he was told. When he was in the shower, he allowed himself to shit a few times while the agent took a shower scrubbing his cock as if it would never get clean while standing over the Soldier. When the agent decided his dick was finally immaculate, he grabbed a towel and dried off. While he was puffing his chest, The Soldier shits again. It was a particularly loud and noisy one. The agent threw the door to the shower opened and looked down at his sneering, “Hey, get in here everyone!” He yelled. “I am going to teach this freak not to shit himself ever again.” 

“Yuri, he can’t help it. Not that I am making excuses for it, but they have tried to keep him from doing this before. It won’t succeed unless they put him on a real food diet, and that doesn't work while he’s in Cryo. He just can’t handle food without shitting almost as soon as it goes with him,” One of the other operatives explained. 

“Well, I am going to have a little fun then,” he said, laughing and grabbing a large hand towel off the bar by the sink and walking into the shower with The Soldier. He grabbed whatever bottle was in the shower and squirted it on the Assets ass and then started smearing it around dipping his fingers in the Asset. After he had coated his ass he began to shove the end of the towel inside the Asset, he wasn’t having much luck getting the dry towel into the Asset so he reached over and grabbed the toilet plunger covered the end of it with the towel lining it up with his asshole. As soon as the dry, rough towel went it, he ripped open essentially getting a rug burn inside his rectum. The asset screamed and started to wail with the pain of it. The agent then he started to push more and more of it inside him. The asset was sobbing and whimpering before the towel was halfway in. By the time the towel was being pushed the last of the way in, he was screaming and begging for them to stop. “Please it hurts oh God, it hurts. Please, please oh God it’s tearing me apart, please stop. Please I’ll be good. I’ll do anything. Oh God, please get it out,” the Asset sobbed as he kept up his begging. Not only did the asset hurt from the huge wad of cloth filling his rectum and rubbing his insides raw, but his bowels were doing everything they could to empty from the big meal. Causing him to cramp and push trying to relieve either of the tortures that were happening to him. Once it was in, the rest of the team had had their fun and left the room thinking the agent was done with his little game, and would take the towel out, and let the Asset finish emptying himself. The agent had no such plan. He started to fist the Asset, shoving the towel up farther and farther into his intestines. By the time the operative had his arm in elbow deep, the Asset had passed out. The operative took a second shower with the Soldier lying comatose on the floor of the shower, then daintily stepped over him and left the room. When the Asset came to, it was clear that he had never experienced pain of this intensity. He needed to shit so bad it was all he could think about.

He had managed to get himself to a squatting position in the shower and start trying to push the towel out. He had pushed and pushed and pushed and sobbed and tried in vain to get his hand far enough inside himself to remove the blockage but it was no use. He could get his hand that far inside himself. It would just have to come out on its own. It had taken him a week and a half to get the towel out. He thought his intestines would have split, long before he managed to get it to a place where he could get it out. It had been the only time while he was with hydra that he had eaten what was asked of him and being thankful for it. He hoped the constant food would help move the towel down his intestines. He had been held up in the safe house for two weeks. They raped him daily and thought him already being in that much pain was the funniest thing in the world. Everyday he would go to the bathroom and shove his hand up inside himself trying to get a hold of the towel. The team would watch and laugh as he fisted himself screaming in an almost constant litany as he did, until it finally came down far enough for his fingers to grasp a tiny piece of fabric. 

It was one of the worst things the Asset had ever had to endure. He had spent hours sitting on the toilet holding a pillow over his face while he pushed so hard he screamed. As Bucky came back to himself, he just prayed Steve wouldn’t think that something like that was a good idea. He didn’t think he could take the pain of that again. 

Steve hadn’t been sure what was going on at first. Bucky had just jumped up, and started toward his room saying something about needing the bathroom, and then he had doubled over. As he bent over, his pants had gotten wet and turned muddy brown. Steve didn’t know what to do to help, but it was clear that Bucky had had an accident, as soon as his pants turned brown, Bucky started to cry. It wasn’t more than a couple of heartbeats before he was sobbing, and gasping for air as he just stood there frozen. Steve didn’t know what to do, or why Bucky wasn’t moving. “Buck, why aren’t you going to the bathroom?” Steve asked, not knowing how making this situation better.

“Can’t--move--shi--everwhere--sorry--mess--can--move--shi---flllooor!” Bucky stuttered, sobbing, and looking around like there was something in the room that would save him from what was happening inside him.

Bucky knew he had to move, it would be better to at least try to get to the bathroom, anything was better than just standing there paralyzed, and waiting to make a puddle of shit in the living room. Steve might not punish him as badly if he tried not to make a mess. He just couldn’t make himself move, knowing that as soon as he did he would shit again. Bucky started to step forward and felt himself leak, it didn’t feel like a lot, but he definitely felt more come out. If he had believed in prayer, he would have prayed to die. 

The next thing he knew there was something being tucked against his ass and between his legs, Steve was saying something that Bucky couldn’t really understand. He just clung to what was being wrapped around him, a towel, he realized, as he clung to it. There was a split second that Bucky thought Steve was going to use it to plug his hole, but Bucky shook his head, trying to evict that thought from his mind. He knew Steve wouldn’t do that. He might fuck him. He might punish him, but he wouldn’t force a towel up inside him. Nothing could have changed Stevie that much.

The next thing he knew it was wrapped around him like a diaper, all he could do at having a “diaper” on was sobbing harder, now that Steve was having to take care of him in this state. Steve thought he needed diapers. What was he thinking, fuck, he did need a diaper. He was currently standing in the living room with feces running down the back of his legs, desperately trying not to shit himself again. 

“Buck, I am going to pick you up and carry you. Bucky! I need you to listen to me. I am going to pick you up,” Steve commanded, hoping the soldier in Bucky would kick into gear and comply. He, looked at Bucky, hoping for some sort of acknowledgement, something in Bucky’s eyes that would indicate he was listening. Something to let Steve know that Bucky had any idea what was about to happen. “Buck, what’s going to be the best way to carry you?” Steve asked and Bucky just stared vacantly at him. Steve decided that he wasn't going to get an answer, so he picked Bucky up, bridal style. As soon as he had Bucky in his arms and slightly bent, Bucky started whimpering and struggling. Steve wasn’t sure what was going on, if Bucky was panicking about being held, or if the position was causing him pain. Steve didn’t have to wonder long before he figured out what had upset Bucky. 

Steve felt the wetness on his legs as he carried Buck to the bathroom. “It’s okay pal. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of these nasty clothes, and taken care of. It’s okay.” Steve said, in a calm, sweet voice, trying to convey that it wasn’t a big deal, that there was nothing in this world that would make Steve love, or care about Bucky less than he did all those years ago. 

It hadn’t been a small slip like before. This was Bucky losing all control of his bowels. Steve just shushed him and kept walking. He made it another few feet before Bucky screamed and started desperately trying to get out of Steve’s grip. Steve didn’t really think about anything other than not dropping him and causing him more pain. He didn't know if Bucky had started thrashing because he knew what was about to happen, or if it happened because Steve gripped him tighter, but Bucky shit yet again. The towel had helped, but not enough, and shit was sluicing down on the floor as he walked, leaving a brown putrid mess in his wake. 

Bucky saw Steve looking him the eyes, and talking to him, but he didn’t have any idea what Steve was saying, he was too lost in his memories and his pain and humiliation to really pay attention. The next thing he knew, Steve had lifted him like you would carry a wife, and as soon as Bucky bent forward in Steve’s arms it put pressure on his stomach, and he shit. The towel was helping, but he didn't think it was enough. This time he wasn’t able to stop going once he started, and he knew it was enough to soak the towel, and make an even worse mess. Bucky knew he was whimpering and struggling, but he couldn't seem to make himself stop moving, and be quiet. Through the pain and all the tears, he could hear Steve shushing him and telling him that it was okay, that everyone got sick. 

Bucky felt his stomach start to cramp again, and he began thrashing around. Almost as soon as he started to really struggle, Steve clamped down on him, and it puts even more pressure on his stomach. Bucky couldn't help it, he screamed and hit Steve in the chest, trying to get him to put him down, but Steve didn’t budge. As Bucky fought against Steve, his bowels emptied onto the floor with a loud and messy splat. The towel having not been able to contain as much as Bucky was asking about it. 

Bucky could hear the sound of water slapping the floor. They were just about in the bathroom, although still on the carpet. Bucky just sobbed and whimpered, struggling in Steve’s arms, not knowing how Steve was going to punish him for being a disgusting, vile, freak who couldn't keep from shitting all over himself, Steve, and the floor. He deserved whatever Steve was going to do to him. He didn’t think Steve would be nearly as mean as he deserved for the mess he was making. 

Steve knew it was on the floor and himself, but he couldn’t think about that. It was a mission, he was single-minded, he had to take care of Bucky. 

When they got to the bathroom, Steve set Bucky down on the tiled floor, but Bucky just started to sink. As if he had lost all muscle tone, Bucky wasn’t even trying to stay upright, or get himself undressed. Steve grabbed him to stop him from hitting the floor. Bucky had a lost, vacant look in his eyes. He just stared at Steve and did nothing. Steve pried the towel out of his hands, shushing him as he clung to it like a lifeline. Steve did his best to get the filthy, heavy towel into the shower and contained without having to look at it. 

Once Steve had managed to get the towel away from Bucky, he started pulling down his pants. Bucky immediately started to scream, thrashing and pummeling Steve. Steve had managed to not cry until now. It was obvious Bucky wasn’t seeing Steve, but the ghost of someone else who he thought was going to hurt him, or even worse maybe he WAS seeing Steve, and he still thought he was going to be hurt. 

As Bucky thrashed and screamed, Steve managed to get his friend’s pants about halfway down his legs when Bucky abruptly stopped everything, and just whimpered as more filthy brown liquid gushed out of him and all over the floor. Steve just lifted him up and carried him to the shower, knowing there was yet more liquidy poop on the floor as he went. He would worry about that once he got Bucky in a place where he wasn’t making an active mess on the floor. Once Bucky was in the shower Steve set him down. This time Steve was prepared and just managed to control Bucky’s boneless slide to the floor, and then started adjusting the shower. 

Steve finished getting Bucky’s pants off, and just dropped them in the corner of the shower, as he got the water to a pleasant temp. Steve did his best to just ignore the brown puddle on the floor of the shower, as he tried to get Buck back to standing so he could get him clean. Steve soon decided that he was going to have to hold Bucky upright if he wanted Bucky to do anything more than sit on the floor of the shower and shit.

Steve wanted to get as much of the filth off of Bucky and himself, so that he could get Bucky in bed as soon as he was done shitting. Steve decided he was going to have to go with a different tactic, so while the water was coming up to a good temp, Steve stepped out of his own filthy clothes, and threw them in the corner with Bucky’s pants and the towel. It was a good thing these showers were big enough for four people at least, there was plenty of room for Steve to do what he needed to do and without standing over Buck.

Steve rinsed off his chest and legs, doing nothing more than just making sure he wouldn’t be getting Bucky any dirtier than he already was, then he pulled Bucky so that he was standing upright, but Bucky still wasn’t doing anything to stay upright on his own, so Steve just wrapped his arms around him in a hug. In a different time and place this would have been a hot moment before sex, but simply having that thought when Bucky was so lost, hurt, and sick made Steve want to cry even more. Steve just helped him turn so his back was to the spray, shushing him as he ran his hand over Bucky’s ass and thighs getting the mess off him; Bucky just stood there under the spray of the shower with his dead, vacant stare, not moving or speaking. Every once in awhile Bucky would whimper, as he shit, but that was the only sign of intelligent life Steve could discern. He would have sunk back to floor if Steve hadn’t held him in an upright position. 

All Bucky was willing to do was let himself shit and be moved around, but Steve was pretty sure there was no willing or unwilling in Bucky shitting. He was pretty sure that nothing short of forcing something in Bucky to keep him from being able to shit could have stopped what was happening. Steve stayed in the shower with Bucky the whole time. He was deathly afraid that Bucky would fall and hurt himself if Steve took his hands off of him for even one moment. 

Every new gush of brown, smelly liquid, that came out of Bucky started a new wave of whimpering and tears. It was heartbreaking to see Bucky like this. Steve had to fight to keep from losing his lunch as well. The smell and the fact that his best friend was reduced to this by Steve’s inability to find him all those decades ago, was almost more than he could bear, but he knew that if he lost control of his own stomach, that Bucky would lose any semblance of calm he had, and Steve knew that wasn’t what Bucky needed right now. Steve had no choice but to force himself to keep the brave face for Bucky. 

When Bucky hadn’t shit for about five minutes, Steve figured he should start getting Bucky and himself actually cleaned up, and not just rinsed off. He just wanted to put Bucky in bed, and let him feel like he had some sense of control over his life. 

Steve tried to hand the loofa to Bucky, but he wouldn’t take it. Steve thought maybe he needed a couple more minutes to just be there, Bucky had managed to get himself together enough to stand on his own, so he was making progress. Steve just took his time cleaning himself; he was back to pretending that everything was normal. Bucky seemed to do better when Steve pretended that nothing was the slightest bit off. When Steve couldn’t drag out washing himself for one more minute, he tried to get Bucky to take the sponge again, but all Bucky would do was stand there staring blankly at the wall just to the left of Steve’s ear. Steve stood there naked, waiting on Bucky to even do a half-assed job of getting himself clean, but he didn’t move at all. Steve finally decided that he was going to have to get Bucky clean, and deal with the fallout of having to touch Bucky between his legs. Steve couldn’t leave a mess there, Bucky would get a nasty rash, and that would just leave a lasting reminder of what had happened. Steve figured that the faster they could move past this the better off Bucky would be. 

Unlike when he had stripped Bucky, this time he didn’t move, fight, or even whimper, he just stood there waiting for Steve to finish. When Steve had washed him everywhere else, he knew he had to clean between Bucky’s legs and ass. He was afraid the eerie calm would be replaced with panic when he started to run his hands over Bucky’s private parts. Steve was afraid, he was afraid that Bucky would panic and end up falling down and hurting himself, but Bucky had to be clean before they got out of the shower. 

Steve ran his hand over Bucky’s ass with a soft washcloth, and when he was satisfied that the outside of Bucky’s ass was clean, he set the cloth aside. Steve put the soap in his hand directly and did the fastest possible, wash of Bucky’s cock and balls, When Steve had done absolutely everything but Bucky’s actual asshole, he held Bucky’s cheeks apart, and ran his soapy hand over Bucky’s asshole and crack. As soon as he slid his hand over Bucky’s hole; he heard Bucky say something he couldn’t quite make out. He ran his hand over it one more time, to make sure it was clean, and wouldn’t burn and hurt for the rest of the night, this time he heard what Bucky had to say. 

“I’ll be good, I won’t fight, I won’t hurt you, please just use lube. Shampoo will hurt if you want it to hurt, but I won’t tear. Please just use lube. I will be good. Please just use lube. I can’t bear for YOU to fuck me dry. Please just use lube. I can’t bear for YOU of all people to fuck me dry,” Bucky said in a quiet, calm almost hypnotic litany, as Steve finished washing him. 

It took everything Steve could muster, not to scream and puke, having to hear Bucky say that. Having to hear that Bucky honestly thought he was going to rape him, at all, ever, but especially when Bucky was so sick. Bucky honestly thought Steve was going to just bend him over and fuck him dry, he thought Steve would want to force him, he thought Steve wanted it to hurt. When they had been just kids no more than 13 Steve had tried to fuck Bucky. He had used some lotion of his mother's and Bucky had screamed. Steve had cried and begged Bucky to forgive him, he had gotten himself so worked up he had puked, and here, Bucky was thinking he would do that to him on purpose. He had offered a way to make it hurt without tearing. He knew that it would hurt, that it would hurt and not tear. Why the fuck did he know it would hurt, but not tear? He finished washing Bucky and got out of the shower, leaving Bucky under the spray so he wouldn’t get cold. Steve got himself somewhat dry and wrapped the towel around his waist. He wanted to get his cock out of Bucky’s sight as fast as possible. He regretted getting naked in front of him; he just wanted to get the filth off him and not rub it all over Bucky as he held him. Steve couldn’t even contemplate how wrong an idea that had been right now. He would spend hours regretting that decision later but not now. Now he had to take care of Bucky. That had to be his one and only priority now. 

Once Steve was done with his inner monologue he threw a towel over the puddle of shit, and started to wipe it up; he knew that he couldn’t get out of the bathroom without stepping in the mess and tracking it through the house. He also thought that the faster it was out of Bucky’s sight, the calmer he would be. Steve couldn’t bear having to watch his best friend lose it yet again today. He didn’t care if that made him a dick he couldn’t handle watching Bucky cry again, not today. When he got over by the door, he saw that there was a trail of shit through the room; he had honestly forgotten that it was on the carpet. Steve just walked back over to the shower and turned it off. He grabbed a towel, wrapped it around Bucky, then dried him off. Once Bucky was at least mostly dry, Steve lifted him up and carried him to his own room. Steve just set him on the bed and quickly backed away. He wanted to get Bucky as far away from the mess as possible. He knew that Bucky didn’t have much pride left, and this had to be killing what was left of it.

 

As Steve carried him out of the bathroom, talking soft, nonsense as he went. He looked down, and saw the mess on the floor, as they walked back to the living room. Bucky didn’t know where Steve was taking him, not until he was being set down on Steve’s bed. He couldn’t help but sob. He didn’t want to be on Steve’s bed. He was nowhere near done shitting. He could feel his guts ramping up their contractions even now. He would mess up Steve’s bed! He was becoming increasingly frantic as he sat there. 

Steve went to grab a pair of pants, to put them on himself and then get Bucky dressed. Steve wanted his cock as far away from Buck as possible. Steve was acting like there was nothing wrong, at least he hoped he was. He was trying to act like there weren’t puddles of shit all over the fucking house. He hoped that just acting normal would help give Bucky some semblance of normality. Bucky seemed happier when Steve just played dumb and pretended like there was no snorting, trumpeting elephant in the room. 

It was just that all Bucky could think about was what had just happened, about how Steve would think of him. How the fuck could Stevie think that him being in his bed was a good idea? Steve had never been stupid, why wasn’t he thinking now? Bucky didn’t want to admit he was a disgusting freak, but he knew he was and why should his friend be punished for his own failings? 

Steve kept up his litany of nonsense as he dragged baggy sweatpants up Buck’s legs. He was trying to get him to calm down, but it didn’t seem to be working. Bucky just kept up his whimpering and crying. He was working himself into a tizzy. “I'm going to make a mess on your bed. I have to get up. Please I am going to shit on your bed. I am too disgusting to sit here. Please just take me back to my room. I can’t mess up your bed. I already ruined the floor. I already got my filth all over the floor. Please Stevie help me go back to my room. Please. I can’t. I just can’t,” Bucky babbled. 

He was going to make a mess, he just knew he was going to make a mess. “No, no, nononono,” he chanted, picking up speed as he became more and more frantic, knowing that it was going to happen again, this time all over Steve’s bed. 

“It’s okay, It’s okay. No one is mad, no one is in trouble, you got sick, accidents happen, that’s life. It’s okay. Just relax and lay down. Your room needs to be cleaned up before you go back in there. You can stay in here. I won’t be mad no matter what.” Steve said, trying his best to calm Buck down before he worked himself up to the point where he did have another accident. 

Steve just left him on the bed, and went to grab something from his bathroom, returning with a box of pills and a glass of water, and a heating pad. Bucky took the pills greedily. He knew he shouldn’t, but he took thirty-two. He figured he had shit way more than once so it was okay. He knew he was running the risk of making himself sick, but he just couldn’t chance another shitstorm of epic proportions. 

Steve saw how many pills Bucky had taken, but he figured that it would be okay, he had gone way more than once, so it probably wasn’t that big a deal. Steve left Bucky and went to go clean up the floor. He thought not only would Bucky like some privacy, but Bucky had made it clear yesterday that he didn’t want to see Steve cry and though Steve had cried in the shower Bucky was pretty out of it> If he cried now Steve was pretty sure Bucky would register what was going on, and that it would just make things worse. Steve went to the corporate floor and grabbed the carpet cleaner. Upon his return, he started to clean up the floor. He couldn’t help but cry the whole time he was cleaning. 

Not only had Bucky been so sick he shit himself in the middle of the living room multiple times, but he thought Steve was going to rape him. Unbelievably, he had been okay with that. He had simply asked that Steve use lube. Not be gentle, not don’t do it-- just please use lube. Steve sobbed as he scrubbed the floor, thankful that the machine’s loud screaming camouflaged his breakdown. Before Steve had cried himself out, the floor looked good. No matter how hard Steve looked he couldn’t tell that anything unusual had happened here. Steve grabbed some carpet freshener aerosol, and sprayed the floor; the last thing Steve wanted was any physical reminder of what happened. Once he had gotten himself under control, he went to go check on Bucky who was just lying there with his back to the door. 

“Hey Bucky you doing okay? You want anything? I can go grab you an electrolyte popsicle from the store down the street, if you think that would make you feel better?” Bucky just laid there his back heaving like he was sobbing silently. Steve was so focused on the silent sobs, that he almost didn’t notice that Bucky was nodding. “Okay Buck I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Steve said, turning, then and ran to the stairs, knowing they would be faster than waiting for the elevator. He felt guilty for not having run the store soon as Bucky was in bed to go get him some of the drink stuff to help you rehydrate. 

As Steve dashed out of the building and down to the store, he made a shopping list in his head. He needed to grab a couple of different packs of baby wipes, some pedialyte pops and some pedialyte. He decided he needed more imodium as well. He should grab some diaper cream too, he thought. Bucky would probably be sore back there. Steve sprinted around the store throwing his items into a cart. Luckily they were mostly in the same aisle. Steve thought he was going to lose his mind while he waited for the checkout girl to ring him out; she was taking forever to scan his 10 items. 

When he got home, he went back to his room with a glass of the pedialyte, the wipes and cream. What he saw when he walked into the room was heartbreaking; Bucky was sitting on the bed sobbing and rocking back and forth. 

“Hey Buck, what’s going on?” Steve asked in his most nonchalant voice as he approached the bed. He was pretty sure it was Bucky feeling like he had to shit again, and being afraid he was going to make a mess again if he tried to get up. Steve had thought about putting a towel under Bucky, but he couldn’t decide if it would make him feel safer or like Steve didn’t trust him. He could see now that maybe Bucky would have felt safer with the towel under him. 

“I have to go!” Bucky all but wailed, as his rocking picked up speed. Steve stepped up to the bed, grabbed Bucky, and lifted him easily, carrying him to the bathroom. Steve was beyond careful not to change his position until he was over the toilet. Bucky managed to slide his pants off before Steve set him down, before Steve had turned around to leave he heard Bucky shitting again. He didn’t know why it struck him as being so personal now after he had seen Bucky not only shit himself, but just stand in the shower shitting for almost an hour, but it seemed like he was invading Bucky’s personal space this time. 

Steve, grabbed the pills and the drink, along with the wipes and the cream. He debated if he should go back into the bathroom and invade Bucky’s privacy more, but the desire to get the meds into Bucky’s system sooner rather than later coupled with wanting to give Bucky the wipes and cream won out. He handed it all to Bucky, waited for Bucky to take the pills, and drink the pedialyte, then hurried out, shutting the door quickly behind him. As he left, he was desperately trying to ignore the sounds of liquid splashing into liquid, and the slight whimpers that he could hear Bucky is made in time with the splashing. But there wasn’t anything he could do other than what he had already done for Bucky. 

Bucky had never been so happy as he was when he hadn’t shit Steve’s bed. He just cried as he shit. Small whimpers when he couldn’t make himself cry silently with how much his stomach was hurting. He couldn’t figure out why the sandwich had been so much worse than the pizza. If anything was harder on his body it should have been the huge amounts of super greasy pizza and not a small sandwich. 

When he was pretty sure he was done; he got himself clean. The pleasure when he wiped himself with the cool aloe square, was palpable. When he got back to the bedroom, he took another eight pills and laid down. He hoped he was done. After a while, Steve came back in, and gave him the popcycle he had promised and a glass of that funny sports drink stuff, encouraging him to drink two glasses and eat the popsicle, and then left him again.

Much to Bucky’s surprise, he fell asleep, and the next thing he knew he was being ripped awake by his stomach telling him that he needed to go to the bathroom again. When Bucky finished, he went to the living room, grabbed another glass of the drink, and took yet more pills. He took eight this time, not wanting to make his body swing too far in the other direction, and as an afterthought he grabbed a popsicle. They were for kids and it made him feel somewhat childish to eat it, but it was easy on his stomach, and there was something pleasing about having the icy treat. 

Bucky hoped he was done visiting the bathroom for the night. Steve wasn’t in sight, but it was four in the morning, so Bucky padded off to Steve's Bed. When he woke up it was morning. Lo and behold, his stomach wasn’t hurting! He was happy that he wasn’t sick, but the idea of having to face Steve was enough to make him sick. Sure, Steve had taken care of him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t think Bucky was disgusting. He wanted to hide in his room forever, but it dawned on him that he wasn’t in his room, he was in Steve’s room. He couldn’t keep Steve out of his own space. He would have to suck it up and face Steve, if for nothing else than to let Steve go get his clothes and changed.


	18. Chapter 18

Steve didn’t know what to do with himself. He knew that Bucky wouldn’t want him hovering, but he didn’t know what else to do. He had only ever known his mother, a woman who was a nurse by trade. He had been so sickly as a child it was how Steve learned to care for othrs, he didn’t know what to do with himself other than to hover. He was so worried about Bucky, he was so sick. Steve had sat in the living room reading for a while, but mostly he was listening to see if Bucky had called out for him, or was making sounds of distress. Finally, when JARVIS said he was asleep, Steve had gone to sleep with strict instructions for JARVIS to wake him if Bucky needed him. 

Steve had tossed and turned for a while, but he was so exhausted from last night, and today that he fell asleep faster than he had thought he would. He just didn't know what to do to make things better for Bucky physically or emotionally. He couldn't make himself forget the look in Bucky’s eyes when he stood there not responding to Steve at all, or that dead emotionless voice he had when he was in begging Steve not to rape him. 

Well, beg wasn’t the right word. He just asked. Steve might not be as broken up about it if Bucky had properly begged him not to rape him. Yes, that would have been better than his dead emotionless voice as he told Steve to use lube. How was that the only thing he had wanted from Steve. No matter what had happened to Buck over the last seventy years he had to know that Steve would never actually do that to him. He had to believe that Steve was still who he had been all those years ago. Had those fuckers truly hurt him badly enough and often enough that he believed that Steve was going to be like that now?

Steve had always been kind to a fault. Fighting for whatever he thought was right, no matter the cost. He had never hurt anyone who hadn’t deserved it. Even when he was a kid, he never just started the fight. He was always protecting someone else or standing up to a bully. But, the look in Bucky’s eyes had told him that he honestly believed that Steve was just going to bend him over and fuck him dry, right there in a puddle of his own waist. 

When Steve woke up in the morning he just laid there and thought about what to do with Bucky. He wanted to rush into his room and tell Bucky he would never hurt him no matter what those fuckers had done before. He wanted to tell Bucky he wasn‘t like them, but he knew that Bucky would just be upset by his bringing up the incidents of yesterday, but Steve didn’t know if he could live with the thought that Bucky still thought he was going to rape him. Should he send Bucky to stay on another floor? Would Bucky be better off living alone, not in the tower. He would have probably just gone and sat on the toilet yesterday and never had an accident if he was living alone and not under Steve's constant watchful eye. He wouldn’t have to feel like he was being watched and scrutinized like he did with Steve always around. But was that what was best for Bucky, or was Steve just trying to make himself feel better by not having to see the way that Bucky was now.

Steve didn’t want to cause Bucky pain, physical or emotional by his just being there. Maybe he should talk to someone and see if they thought Bucky would be better off on his own, or with Steve. He didn’t want to be the cause of Bucky’s suffering, even if it was just by his not wanting to let Bucky be alone. The more he thought about it the more he wondered if he should have JARVIS get another floor ready for Bucky before he talked to Bucky about living alone. Maybe Bucky would want to leave right away to get away from him. Steve was so lost and worried as he laid there and thought of all the ways that he was failing Bucky. 

After a few hours of laying there he got up and went to the living room and started making himself something to eat. He didn't want to have to eat in front of Bucky, he figured that if he wasn’t eating in front of him, then Bucky could decide if and when and what he wanted to eat. 

Steve finished his food and turned on the TV, it was some stupid bullshit show. Steve wasn't even sure what he had put on to watch, it was just playing so that if Bucky came out he wouldn't be able to tell that Steve was just sitting there waiting on him to come out of his room. 

Steve sat and stared at the screen for what seemed like forever while he waited for Bucky to come out of his room. He knew that the best way to handle this was to just pretend that nothing had happened, but he just couldn’t let Bucky go on thinking that he was going to rape him. It was more than he could bear to think that Bucky was afraid of him. 

Steve kept going over and over what had happened to Bucky yesterday, he just couldn't get over the look on Bucky’s face, the sad and defeated look that seemed to both beg and be resigned to whatever Steve decided to do to him. Bucky honestly thought that Steve was going to hurt him, Steve didn't know what he needed to do to make Bucky feel safe in their home, or if there was anything that he could do to make Bucky feel safe in their home. 

Steve thought that maybe he should let Bucky leave. Steve had all his back pay he could buy Bucky a house and have Tony trick it out with the latest security. There would be no way to get into the house if Tony really tricked it out for him. Maybe Bucky would feel safer there than he did with Steve, but what if that just made Bucky feel like Steve didn’t want him around, or that Steve thought he was dirty or disgusting. 

Steve just sat on the couch and thought about all the options that he had on how to deal with Bucky. He wanted to make the right choice, but it seemed that no matter what he did, it would just make things worse for Bucky. Steve wanted to be a good friend, he wanted to help Bucky get better, but he thought he was doing the opposite. After a while Steve decided that he had to do something, and the only thing he could think of to do that wouldn’t make things worse was to spend some time trying to learn more about all the things that he should and shouldn’t be doing to help Bucky. 

Steve had done some research about rape recovery and things like that, but he hadn’t done much. Steve dove headlong into his research as he waited for Bucky to wake up. The more he read, the more the more he saw that he really needed to actually talk to Bucky, and stop just assuming what he needed to do to make things better. It was Bucky's body and Bucky's life, and he wasn’t really any better than anyone who had actually raped Bucky when he just kept making choices and forcing them on Bucky. He needed to find out if Bucky wanted space or if he wanted to be close to someone. 

Steve also reads about what flashbacks were and what could cause them, and how sometimes there was no cause at all. Of course he had seen soldiers have flashbacks in the war, but that was different. You could most often tell what was causing them, and Steve understood the pain and grief that they were feeling so he had some idea about what to do to help them, with Bucky's flashbacks Steve was lost. Steve had no idea of what was causing them, he wasn’t even really sure if that was what Bucky was having. 

Then Steve read about body memories, they were a whole other thing. Steve was pretty sure that a body memory was what Bucky had had when he sodomized himself, but he wasn’t sure about that either. Steve had honestly been shocked and kind of appalled by the fact that after everything that had happened to Bucky he had chosen to penetrate himself, but he had read enough now to know that self harm in any way was very common, as was sodomizing oneself especially in men who were raped for long periods of time. As hard as it was for Steve not to condemn Bucky for that choice he knew that it was wrong of him to judge him for how he was handling his abuse. 

He had read a story about a young man who had been sexualy abused by his father, and whenever the man was upset he would have these terrible feelings of being empty and needing to hurt himself in that way. He talked about the need to hurt in that specific way, that he needed to have something inside himself. He called it a compulsion. He talked about being able to understand the pain and knowing how to deal with it when it was happening to his body, but not being able to deal with the pain when it was just in his head. 

The young man also talked about cutting himself, and how much he craved the blood and pain. The man talked about sodimizing himself with things that were not designed for insertion into the rectum, and having to go to the hospital several times because he had physically damaged himself badly enough to need immediate medical intervention. The man talked about a boyfriend, he lived with who took all his sex toys and threw them out, this led to the man to feel yet more worthless and shitty for having not been able to control himself, and for having caused the person he loved to be upset with him and ashamed of him. The guilt and shame just made his desire to hurt himself uncontrollable, and when he did hurt himself there was nothing safe to use, so he ended up using a toilet brush handle, he had been so distraught that he had perforated his colon and almost died because of the damage to his rectum and lower intestines. 

The man also talked about a friend who had caught him sodomizing himself, and had just given him a blanket and covered him up simply asked him to stop moving the toy. He hadn’t panicked and demanded he stop, the friend just simply asked him to stop moving the toy so that they could talk. The man said he was able to calm down and didn’t feel like he was failing his friend. He could tell that the friend cared, but he didn't feel like he was a monster for what he was doing. The man had been able to calm down enough to take the toy out and stop hurting himself without it causing a shame spiral. 

It was terrifying and enlightening to read the man talk about how much hurting himself was a part of his life. He wondered if Bucky had been cutting himself, with as fast as their healing was Steve didn’t think he would have known if Bucky had been harming himself if Bucky hadn't told him. He would have no way to know if Bucky was cutting or burning himself. He would be healed from a simple cut in less than an hour. Even a cut that needed a stitch or three would have been healed before Bucky woke up in the morning. 

Steve wondered if Bucky needed medical help after he had sodomized himself. Was he so sick because he was septic? Was that what was causing the issues he was having yesterday? How did he ask Bucky if that was the problem. Bucky seemed frightenily aware of his body and his limitations, so Steve hoped that if that was the case that not only would Bucky know but he would be able to ask for help. Steve wondered if he should ask Bucky if he wanted some kind of sex toy that would be safe to put in his rectum that wouldn’t hurt him to the point of needing medical help. He just didn’t have any idea how to talk to Bucky about that. 

Steve wanted to talk to Bucky about the things that he had read, but he didn't want to start a fight and upset Bucky more, than Steve remembered he had talked about getting Bucky an email of his own. He wondered if he should send Bucky the link to the Blog he was reading. He decided that he would save the site ask Bucky if he wanted him to share the things that he had found with him. 

The more Steve knew about sexual assault and rape recovery the more he knew he didn’t know, and that was far worse than being in the dark altogether. He did know a few things now that he didn’t before. There were a lot of resources for both Bucky and himself online, and that was very reassuring to Steve. Steve could join a support group online, and be able to talk to people who understood what he was going through. There were also groups for Bucky as well. Steve knew that he had to talk to Bucky about things no matter how awkward that was going to be for both of them. 

Steve didn’t need all the gory details, he had actually read that asking for details was a horrible thing to do to someone, and tantamount to an assault in its own right, but he had to ask if Bucky wanted him around at all. Steve needed to ask if he wanted to remain in the tower, or on Steve’s floor. There were other things that Steve needed to ask if Bucky wanted to stay with him. He needed to know if Bucky wanted to be kept company when he had a flashback or if he wanted to be left alone. He needed to set up some kind of safe word that Bucky could use if he was having a bad time and need something specific from Steve. He also needed to find out if Bucky wanted him to touch him and help him with grounding exercises when he had a panic attack or a flashback. Steve thought that having a way for Bucky to communicate his wants and needs would be better for both of them.

Steve had read that some people found it helpful to be reminded that they weren’t in that place anymore, and that they were safe and cared about during a flashback, body memory or panic attack. He had to ask if the couple of times he thought Bucky was having a flashback, if that was what was actually happening. Steve needed to find out if there were smells, sounds or sights that Bucky knew would cause a flashback or a panic attack. He needed to get more information, and then find out what Bucky would like him to do with that information. Steve didn’t want to keep re-victimizing Bucky, but he needed to have some more information so that he could help Bucky. 

Even if helping was just to put on specific music and turn the lights down low and leave the floor. He also wanted to know if Bucky wanted to go over security specs with Tony or JARVIS, so that he would be able to feel more comfortable that nothing was going to happen to him. Steve wondered if Bucky would like to set up security protocols with JARVIS and Tony that Steve wasn't able to override that would have JARIVS set to notify someone if Bucky said a specific word or if Steve did anything that was hurtful to Bucky. 

Steve needed to tell Bucky that he wasn’t going to harm him no matter what he thought Steve was going to do. Steve just didn't know how to have that conversation with Bucky. He wanted Bucky to feel safe around him, and that even if Bucky didn’t feel safe with him, and wanted Steve to go away Steve wasn’t going to be angry or hate him. The more Steve thought about it the more he wondered if Bucky wanted to have JARVIS keep an eye on Steve to make sure that he was safe from Steve. He couldn't really understand the odd relationship that was forming between Bucky and the AI, but he could see that there was some kind of mutual respect that was going on between them. 

Steve sat on the couch for a long time going over and over the list of things that he needed to talk to Bucky about. He wondered if sending Bucky an email would be better, he thought it might, but he also thought that if he sent Bucky an email that Bucky would just become upset and think that Steve hated him or was judging him, and that was the last thing Steve was trying to do, the goal was to talk so that he could make Bucky feel more safe and secure not to upset him and make him feel unwanted or unloved. Tone of voice and emotion was just not something you could covey in an email, and Steve feared that if he asked, if Bucky wanted to leave the tower and Bucky couldn't see the sadness on Steve’s face that he would think that Steve wanted him to choose to leave, even if that wasn't what Bucky wanted to do. 

Steve decided that he would have to have an actual conversation with Bucky. He wondered if having the conversation off the floor was a good idea. He had read that some people very much needed their home to be a safe space, and a place where they didn’t have to have to feel judged. He wondered if he should ask the rest of the team to stay out of the gym and go talk to Bucky there. The gym was really the only other place that Bucky had been since he moved into the tower and he did seem happier there than he did anywhere else. 

Steve had so much on his mind that he honestly didn’t notice that Bucky was up and moving around in the kitchen. He was so busy going over and over his list of questions, and things that he wanted to talk to Bucky about that he hadn’t noticed that Bucky as in the kitchen for at least ten minutes as Bucky made himself some fruit salad and a cup of yogurt, and that he was now sitting on the couch looking at the wall like Steve wasn’t even in the room. It was sad that Bucky didn’t even want to look at him, but at least he was sitting on the couch and hadn’t just run back to his room as soon as he had his food. Steve wondered if Bucky was afraid to go in his room because he thought there would be physical evidence of yesterday. The thought made Steve want to cry. He would not let himself think like that. Today was a new day, and it was going to be the start of something better. He wasn’t exactly willing to say that today was going to be a good day, he didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on the day or Bucky or himself for that matter, but he was optimistic. He thought that if he was going to have a conversation with Bucky about all the things that he knew they had to talk about that it wasn’t going to be a good day, but it was going to be the start of good things, better things. 

Bucky had stayed in Steve’s room for as long as he could. He just didn't want to have to face Steve, but he felt dirty and sweaty and he wanted something to eat, and a shower, and if he wanted to do that he was going to have to face Steve. So, he stood up and took the biggest breath, he could, and walked out to the living room like nothing bad had ever happened to him. What he saw was nothing like what he had expected. Steve was sitting on the couch pouring over his tablet and typing away on what looked like a list. If things had been different, Bucky would have made a comment about Steve running his hamster to death with all that thinking, but he wasn’t in the mood, so he went to the kitchen and tried to find something that wouldn’t be too bad for his tender stomach. He found that there was a small bowl of the fruit salad and some yogurts left. He thought that with all the things that were going on in his stomach, putting some healthy bacteria in his gut would be a good thing. He brought his stuff over to the couch, sat down and started eating before Steve looked up. Bucky didn't know what he was working so hard on, but he didn’t think it would be a good thing for him. 

He wondered if Steve would kick him out now or if he would drag it out for a while before he got up the courage to talk to Bucky about moving off his floor. Maybe Steve was so disgusted with him now that he was trying to find a place where he could send Bucky. Maybe he was just going to send him to live on another floor. He would bet that the person who did the main floors here had done a whole floor with nothing but tile and hardwood floors, that would be a better place for Bucky at least then he wouldn’t be ruining the floors all the time. He was so disgusting. Bucky wondered if Steve had already told Tony about his failures. He didn’t think that Tony would care, he had more money than sense, and he would just have the carpets replaced, but Bucky was sure that the man would take great pleasure in being able to rub it in Bucky’s face that he was so broken he couldn’t even sit in the toilet like an adult. Bucky darkly wondered about the kinds of you need a diaper comments Tony would be able to come up with if he had the inclination to do so. Bucky wondered if, when the World Security Council brought him to trial if the legal team that Steve wanted to hire would play the tapes of him standing there with shit all over himself, and talk about how broken and ruined he was ruined. Maybe Steve would let him make the decision if he wanted to tell the lawyers that he shit himself. He wondered if the stress of the trail would make him shit himself right in the courtroom in front of the world. He did think that if he shit himself at least he would gain some pity from the courts and media. He wondered if he should ask for diapers before the trial. He thought that JARVIS would get them for him without telling Steve or Tony that he had asked for them. He knew that Steve would do anything to get him pardoned even if it meant humiliating him. Bucky knew that Steve wouldn’t do it just to hurt him, Steve would do it to try and save him, but Bucky didn’t think he wanted to be saved if it meant having to tell the world about shitting himself and being raped literally hundreds of thousands of times over the years. Like I’m going to get a say in any of it he thought bitterly.

When Steve finally noticed him, he smiled that stupid happy-your-alive smile and set his tablet aside. How could Steve look like he was glad to see him? Bucky just wanted to hide in his room. He didn’t know what was up with Steve pouring over his tablet but he didn’t think it bodes well for him. He would have to eat quickly and go to his room he thought. 

“I want to talk to you about a few things, but I don’t want to start a fight. I don’t think you are going to enjoy what I have to say, but I think we need to talk about some things.” Steve says watching to see what Bucky’s response will be. 

“What!” Bucky spits, ”You want me out of your house? You want me somewhere with tile floors so I can't make a mess?” 

Steve was glad he hadn’t brought that up and decided that he wouldn’t offer that or Bucky moving off his floor at all. He thought about how much talking to Bucky was likely to blow up in his face and lead to Bucky hating him. “No! I read some things online and I want to talk to you about them.” Steve said apprehensively. 

“I didn’t mean to make a mess! If there was anyway to not have made a mess I would have. You have to know that Stevie. I am sorry.” Bucky said almost ready to cry as he spoke. He was so afraid to hear Steve of all people tell him how disgusting he was. He knew that he was a vile thing that didn’t deserve to even be around Steve, but he didn’t know how much he didn’t want to have to hear Steve say that to him until it was about to happen. 

Steve went to touch Bucky and stopped himself. “I am so sorry Buck. I know you didn’t mean to. No one means to get sick like that; I know that,” Steve said. “I’m not mad. I promise, I am not mad or disappointed with you. I just want to make things better for you. I could see how much pain you were in yesterday. I don’t blame you for getting sick. I could see that you couldn’t help what your body did. You didn’t mean to, and even if you had meant to I wouldn’t be mad. I would be confused, but not mad.” Steve said trying to convey how honestly he meant what he was saying. 

Bucky just stared at him as Steve spoke. He didn’t see any hint of deception or anger in Steve’s face. Bucky thought he might honestly be telling him the truth about not hating him or being mad at him. 

“The things I want to talk to you about aren’t going to be particularly pleasant to talk about, but I need to know some things. I have read about some things, and from what I read I understand that some people like to keep their home a safe space. So would you like to go down to the gym or to another floor to talk about things, so we don’t have to do it here in your home?" Steve asked, trying to keep things calm. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t really been anywhere else in the tower, so I don’t know how comfortable I would be elsewhere.” Bucky said, looking at Steve like he might bite him. 

“Okay” Steve said. “Would you like JARVIS to turn off audio in this room while we talk? Steve asked. 

“You can do that?” Bucky asked sounding shocked.

“Yeah” Steve said, feeling guilty for not telling Bucky that he could turn off JARVIS’s ability to hear in a room, Steve wondered how uncomfortable JARVIS made Bucky by listening and watching. 

“JARVIS privacy mode pleases for one hour.” Steve said as he grabbed his tablet. Steve had made a list of questions to ask so they didn’t have to keep having this conversation. He was sure that they would end up having to have more conversations like this one, but he hoped that they wouldn’t have to have them super often so Bucky could at least have some time to not be quite so raw emotionally. 

“Is now a good time to talk or would you like to wait a while?” Steve asked. 

“Let's talk now.” Bucky said, sounding like he was trying to prepare himself for the most horrible thing in the world to happen to him. 

“Okay.” Steve said trying to prepare himself for what they were about to talk about. He didn’t want this to be too horrible for either of them, but he didn’t really think that it was going to be anything but terrible. 

“I wanted to ask you if you have been having flashbacks?” Steve asked and then remembered that asking for details was tantamount to rape itself so he tacked on. “You can tell me as much or as little as you want to tell me. You are allowed to have secrets from me or anyone else. You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to share, but you can share anything you want to share. I want you to feel safe talking to me about anything you would like to talk about and to be able to give me as many or as few details as you want to share.” Steve tried to get out as fast as possible so Bucky wouldn't feel like he had to give Steve all the details if he didn't want to, but he wanted to create a space where Bucky could tell Steve as much as he wanted to tell Steve.

Bucky sat there feeling like he had been stabbed in the gut. He didn’t know what to say to Steve. If he told him the truth, it would just upset Steve, but he didn’t want to lie to Stevie either. Bucky took a deep breath and nodded. Not daring to open his mouth. 

“Can you tell me when you had them? Steve asked, as calmly as he could. He had known the answer would be that Bucky had been having them, but hearing Bucky says it was a little harder than he had thought it would be to have to hear. 

Bucky didn’t think he could tell Steve without having one now. “When you gave me the clothes in your room. When you showed me our rooms for the first time. When we fought. When I was sick the other night. And yesterday when I was sick.” Bucky said, keeping his fists clenched so his nails were biting into his hand to keep himself in the here and now. 

“Do you have them every time you get sick?” Steve asked. He hadn’t intended to ask that, but he had asked before his mouth checked in with his brain. 

Bucky just nodded and said “Mostly.” 

“When you have a flashback do you want to be around me or do you want me to go away?” Steve asked not knowing what he wanted the answer to be. Then he thought he might be better off if he explained what he had read. He didn't think Bucky really knew what his options were, and he wanted to let Bucky know what options he had to choose from before he had to pick an answer to that question. “Wait let me explain that a little more before you answer." Steve said, thinking over the information he had read this morning. 

“So from what I read this morning, some people really like to have someone help them with grounding exercises, and reminding them that they are safe, and not in whatever hell their mind is creating for them. Some people want to be held and some people want to be left alone. Some people want to have the lights turned down and either have silence or to have music they find calming put on so they can calm down. Some people really like to be touched and find that comforting, some people find physical contact to be unbearable when they are in the middle of a flashback or panic attack.” Steve explained, as best he could, trying to remember all the things that he had read, he wanted to make sure he gave Bucky all the options that he had before him, so he could really pick what he thought would be best for him. 

Bucky just listened. He didn't know he could do anything, but simply endure them until they were over. He didn’t know what he wanted. He hadn’t known there were options until just now, so he didn’t know how to answer that question. “I think I would like for you to help me remember that I’m not there anymore. I can feel them doing things to me when it happens. I feel them touch me and hurt me. It’s not just the memories. I can feel their hands and other things when I get like that. I hate them so much Stevie! You can’t understand what it’s like to feel like they are there touching you and hurting you again.” Bucky said, like he was fighting not to start crying as he spoke. 

“If I ask for permission before I touch you would you be okay if I touched you? It’s so hard not to just reach out and touch you when you get upset. You were always so touchy when we were younger, and I can’t help but think you haven't had someone show you any kind of physical affection in so long. I know you have to be craving it physically even if you don’t want it intellectually.” Steve said, forcing himself not to touch Bucky before he had a chance to make up his mind. 

“Yes, but no.” Bucky said. “Sometimes I want to be touched and sometime the idea of being touched makes me want to throw up. I won’t be able to handle you hugging me or touching me in any way that will make me feel restrained, I know that, but if you put your hand on my back or maybe my arm, but not grabbing it like you mean to keep me in place.” Bucky said, tears starting to form in his eyes as he spoke. 

“Do you want to have a word or a hand gesture that you can use if you need me to stop touching you?” Steve asked. 

Bucky liked that idea. He didn’t know if he would be able to speak if he started to get lost in his mind, but he could probably do something with his hand. 

“Okay." Bucky said not really looking up from the couch as he spoke. 

“What would you like to use?” Steve asked, feeling optimistic and like even though it was clear that this was a hard topic for Bucky that they were making some kind of progress. 

Bucky just lifted his hand and made this funny gesture with his hand. Steve recognized it from their days in the army, it was the sign of danger when they were in a situation where they couldn't talk. 

“Would you like a hand signal for when you would like me to touch you, but you don’t think you can say it?” Steve asked. 

Bucky made another sign with his hand this was the all clear he noticed. “Good.” Steve said, as he reached forward to put his hand on Bucky’s back. Making his movements telegraph his intentions, and then waiting to see what Bucky would like before he actually made contact. Bucky made the all clear sign and Steve let himself rest his hand on Bucky’s back, making sure that he didn’t do anything that could be construed as restrictive. Steve could swear that he felt some of the tension relax out of Bucky’s back as he started moving his hand in small soothing circles. 

Bucky was shocked at how much he liked having Steve’s hand on his back. Having been asked what he wanted for once, and feeling like he could make the action stop at anytime he started to get upset was very soothing. 

They sat like that for a few minutes while Bucky got his breathing calmed down and his tears under control. Bucky hadn’t a single touch that wasn’t either in battle and meant to hurt in some way, or sexual and unwanted. Even medical had enjoyed hurting in some way. They would do tests without numbing him or just do things to hurt him. Bucky could feel himself starting to panic and he didn’t know what he wanted of Steve, or how to convey what he wanted even if he could decide what he wanted. Bucky could feel his breathing starting to become more and more panicked, but he couldn’t seem to get it under control. The effort of trying to decide what he wanted from Steve was making him more stressed, and panicky. 

Steve could see that something was happening and he didn’t know what to do to help make things better. He just started talking to Bucky telling him everything was okay and that he was safe and at home with Steve in their home in 2016. That he was in New York City in Stark tower. That he was sitting on Steve’s ugly couch, and that Steve was working on getting them a better coach at some point in the next couple of days, and that he hoped Bucky would like the one he had picked out, and that if he didn’t like it they could always return it and get something else. Steve could feel Bucky’s breathing start to slow and become more stable the more he talked and then he allowed his hand to just rest on Bucky’s back.

Bucky just sat and absorbed what Steve was doing and how calming it was to have Steve saying all the stupid bullshit he was saying. When he was calm again, he made the sign for all clear to let Steve know that he was doing better. 

Steve sat in silence when he saw Bucky make the all clear. He was so happy that this had worked. Steve felt joy and optimism swell up in his chest as he sat there his hand on Bucky. Knowing that he had helped his friend, and no matter how small it was it felt so amazing. All he had wanted to do was to help Bucky, and this was the first time that he actually felt like he was doing something that was actually helping. 

Bucky was surprised and pleased that he hadn’t had a full flashback. He didn’t know what had stopped it, but he was happy that it had stopped. Maybe it was that Steve had helped to ground him and remind him that he was not there, not with them, that he was still in 2016, with Steve, and not about to be raped by some HYDRA operative. 

After another few minutes Steve asked if Bucky wanted to finish their conversation in a while or another day or now. 

“Now is good. I think I would panic if we didn’t finish it now.” Bucky said, looking at Steve for the first time in a long while. 

“I don't know how to ask, but I need to know.” Steve said, taking a deep breath and then just spitting it out. “Would you like a stuffed animal to hug when you are upset? Several of the things online said that lots of people found having a stuffy to be very comforting.” Steve asked, looking like he was half expecting Bucky to hit him. 

In all honesty Bucky didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted to punch Steve in the face for thinking he was a child who needed a stuffed toy to feel better, but if he was honest he kind of thought that he might like having something soft and huggable. He had never had anything like that with HYDRA. He wondered if it would help him snap out of whatever hell was playing out in his head and with his body if he had something so physical, that was so clearly not given to him by HYDRA. He nodded and then turned his face away from Steve so Steve didn’t have to see how shamefaced he was about wanting the stupid toy to cuddle and hug. 

“Okay. Would you like to pick it yourself, or would you like my help finding one you like, or would you like me to just get you one that I think you would like?” Steve asked, trying to seem safe and caring. 

“I don’t know, I will let you know.” Bucky answered, trying to keep himself from crying as he thought about the kindness Steve was showing him. 

“Do you have nightmares?” Steve asked, he was positive the answer was going to be yes, but he needed to ask the question so he could get to his next question.

“Yes. I haven’t had that many since I have been here, but I have them a lot, and I wake up screaming, crying or both.” Bucky said, looking like he wanted to cry again. 

“Would you like me to have JARVIS alert me when you have them so I can wake you up, and help you calm down after?” Steve asked, fearful that insinuating that Bucky needed his help was going to upset Bucky, but he wanted to ask, and give Bucky the opportunity to have that kind of comfort. 

“Very much! I hate them. They are worse than the flashbacks. I can’t make them stop. I can focus on the things around me and make the flashbacks stop at least sometimes, but I can’t do anything when I am asleep. I wake up screaming and it’s awful.” Bucky said, and even though Steve couldn’t see his face, he was pretty sure Bucky was crying now in earnest. 

“Okay. How would you like me to comfort you?” Steve asked, feeling like Bucky was a heartbeat away from blowing up and freaking out or sobbing. They still needed to do this, and breaking this up into multiple conversations that took days to have was going to worse on Bucky, so unless Bucky asked to stop he was going to push through. Steve scooted closer to Bucky making sure not to make him feel trapped, or like Steve was pushing boundaries seuxaly, or just making him feel like he didn’t have the power to stop the situation. Since he had his back almost completely to Steve now, if Steve leaned closer he would be putting his cock into very close proximity to Bucky’s ass, and Steve wasn’t sure that even if Bucky was okay with being touched, if he would be okay with being touched like that. 

“I don’t know, I just want to be woken up and reminded that it wasn’t real.” Bucky said, and then he whispered. “Hugged. Maybe.”

Steve leaned forward and allowed himself to lean against Bucky his whole upper body against Bucky without putting his hands around. He wanted let Bucky feel the warmth of another body touching his without having to feel trapped by what Steve was doing. Steve stayed that way for a long time just letting Bucky feel the contact of another body. Steve could feel Bucky’s breath change as his tears changed to sobs, but Steve didn’t move he just leaned against him and let Bucky cry with as much privacy as he seemed to want. 

Bucky thought that he would panic when Steve leaned into him, but it just felt so good to have someone hold him like that. It was so soothing, he couldn't’ help but start to sob. This wasn’t like when he cried normally this was almost a hopeful feeling. 

After almost half an hour Bucky shifted and Steve jerked back to give him space, but Bucky closed the gap flinging his arms around Steve and crushing him in a hug that was almost painful, but Steve just let Bucky hold him and get whatever comfort he was able to get from Steve. Steve ran his hands up and down the Bucky’s back without the slightest hint of pressure in his hold. Steve wanted to hug Bucky back as ferociously as Bucky was hugging him, but he thought that that would make Bucky feel trapped and upset. So he kept his arms loose and easy around him. 

Bucky held him for a long time before he let go and leaned back breaking the contact. Steve let go immediately as to not trap Bucky. 

“Thanks.” Bucky said, wiping the tears from his face. With an angry swipe. 

Steve just smiled sad and weak, but hopeful. “Do you want to continue?” Steve asked. “ I only have like two more questions.”

Bucky nodded and swiped at his face again. Steve could see that Bucky was about done no matter what he said. Steve needed to get this over with so Bucky could calm down and try to feel better. 

“You know I am not going to hurt you? Right?” Steve asked, fearful that no matter what the answer was it was going to break his heart. 

Bucky didn’t know what to say. He knew that no matter what he said, that Steve was going to be crushed by it, but he needed to tell Steve the truth. “Sometimes I think you are going to hurt me. Stevie, they hurt me so much, and for so long. I haven’t had a kind word or a kind touch in seventy years. If I am being, rational I know you aren’t going to hurt me, but sometimes I am not capable of being rational; I start to panic, and I can’t help but think that you are going to hurt me. The other day when we were changing, I kept thinking that you were going to bend me over and shove into me dry. I know that you won’t, but when I am in the moment I can’t help but think that you are going to hurt me. I feel like I deserve it, I feel like every bad thing they did to me was earned for all the lives I took. They always told me that I deserved it, or that I liked what they did to me. They always hurt me. Stevie. I’m sorry I don’t want to feel like you are going to hurt me, but I think you are going to sometimes. When I started opening the bath stuff I couldn’t help but think that you were going to make me take a bath so you could watch, then you were going to fuck me while I was in the tub.” Bucky said his breathing turning into sobs as soon as he wasn’t speaking anymore. 

Steve opened his arms slowly and went to reach for Bucky.

Bucky gave the danger sign and Steve clapped his arms down by his sides and leaned back away from Bucky. Letting Bucky have as much space as he wanted. Steve didn’t want to make him feel any more vulnerable or hurt than he already was. 

Bucky was so shocked when Steve respected his want to not be touched that just made him feel more guilty and bad about himself. He didn’t want to hurt Steve he truly didn’t. Bucky's breathing started to even out and he started to calm down and then he wanted nothing more than to be held again, the thing was he didn’t know how to ask Steve to hug him or let him know that he was okay to be touched now. The more he thought about it the more he wanted Steve to hold him. The only thing that he could think to do was to give the all clear sign again, hoping that Steve would understand. As soon as he gave the all clear sign Steve leaned forward, arms open again, but he still wasn’t touching Bucky. Bucky took a deep breath and gave the all clear sign again, and Steve threw his arms around him, hugging him fiercely and Bucky could feel tears on his shirt, but unlike before when Steve had cried it wasn’t pissing Bucky off this time. He didn’t feel like Steve was pitying him, it was just that Steve’s heart was breaking for his friend. It was nice, if he was honest with himself, it was nice. He just kept holding Steve until he had cried himself out, and then Bucky held him until it seemed like Steve had cried himself out as well. It felt nice to be the one offering comfort to his friend. Bucky remembered doing this with Steve when they had been kids, and a few times during the war when they had seen something horrible. After Zola Buck had been a mess, and it was mostly Steve comforts Bucky, but then after a while at war, it was clear that they both needed to be comforted. Bucky had wondered if any of the other Commandos had found someone to help them when the night was just too hard to bear alone. He had hoped that they had found that somewhere, he had always had that with Steve; a shoulder to cry on when he was lost or there to hold Steve when he was the one in need of a shoulder. 

Bucky hoped that Steve had found that with Peggy, after he fell. The thought of Steve not having anyone to hold him when he had just lost his love was more than Bucky could bear. He just wanted Steve to have someone to help him through his hard time. It was hard to think of Steve finding comfort in someone else arms, but he couldn't bear the thought of Steve having to cry alone unless he had wanted it that way. Bucky knew that Steve would have told everyone that he wanted it that way, but Steve had been a touchy kid long before they had figured out other ways to touch each other and Bucky knew that Steve wouldn't have wanted to be alone after he fell. 

After what felt like forever Steve started to speak again. “Do you remember the first time we had sex when we were kids?”

Bucky pulled away and started to look like he was a hair's breadth away from panicking again. “Sort of. I remember that it hurt really bad. I didn’t know that anything could hurt like that, but that’s really all I remember. That’s part of why I think you like to hurt me.”

Steve started to cry again. “Oh god Buck that’s not what happened. I mean it is, but it’s not the whole story. We had never done anything before, and I didn’t know that we needed to do anything to get you ready for me to, you know, put my cock in you.” Steve could see that Bucky was getting more and more spun out as he talked. Steve started talking faster, trying to get to the end of his story before Bucky really lost it. “I had gotten some lotion that my mom had, and I just coated myself, and put some on you. Neither one of us knew any better. When I pushed into you; I hurt you, and you screamed. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, I just knew that I hurt you. I was so upset that I threw up because I couldn't calm down after I had hurt you like that. I was so heartbroken that I had hurt you. I begged you to do the same thing to me, because I felt so bad. I hadn’t even been willing to try again for almost a year because I was so afraid I would hurt you again. I was so lost after that. How can you think I would do that to you willingly?” Steve asked, looking like he wanted to puke all over again. 

Bucky just sat there looking at Steve looking like he didn’t know what to say or do after hearing that. Steve wanted to beg Bucky to believe him, but he didn’t think that would help. “I don’t remember anything other than you shoving into me and me screaming and crying because it felt like you were tearing me apart. I don’t remember anything else.” Bucky said getting up. “I need some time. I am going to read in my room for a while. We can talk more later.” Bucky said, already standing and walking away. 

Steve didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know that Bucky had remembered their first time, but no wonder he was afraid if he only remembered the pain not how upset he had been about hurting Bucky. He just wanted to die. Steve Sat dumbfounded for a while before he got up and went to the gym. He left a note on the table for Bucky in case he came out and didn’t know where Steve was. 

Bucky had remembered that first time with Steve. He had remembered it crystal clear, but he didn’t remember anything but the pain. Not the caring or Steve being inconsolable about having hurt him. As soon as Steve started talking to him about it, he started to remember all the other things that had happened after Steve had pushed into him. He had screamed that part he always remembered, but then he remembered Steve sobbing, and begging Bucky to forgive him. Steve's tears streaming down his face, his begging to have Bucky do the same thing to him. Steve there on the bed on his hands and knees telling Bucky he should do the same to him. That he deserved to feel that kind of pain for what he had done to him. 

Bucky just sat on the bed and cried at the memories that he was having now. Little bitty Steve, sobbing about what he had done. He wanted to trust Steve, he wanted to trust that he was still that person, but he was afraid to trust him like that.

Bucky stayed in his room for hours lying on his bed going over all the things that he remembered about Steve and all the things that he had seen in Steve since he had come to the tower to live with him. It was hard to think of him as a monster who would hurt him, but he couldn’t keep from having those thoughts about Steve from time to time. Maybe he would start to trust him more. He wanted to.


	19. Chapter 19

Bucky had remembered that first time with Steve. He had remembered it crystal clear, but he didn’t remember anything but the pain. Not the caring or Steve being inconsolable about having hurt him. As soon as Steve started talking to him about it, he started to remember all the other things that had happened after Steve had pushed into him. 

He had screamed that part he always remembered, but then he remembered Steve sobbing, and begging Bucky to forgive him. Steve's tears streaming down his face, his begging to have Bucky do the same thing to him. Steve there on the bed on his hands and knees telling Bucky he should do the same to him. That he deserved to feel that kind of pain for what he had done to him. 

Bucky just sat on the bed and cried at the memories that he was having now. Little bitty Steve, sobbing about what he had done. He wanted to trust Steve, he wanted to trust that he was still that person, but he was afraid to trust him like that.

Bucky stayed in his room for hours lying on his bed going over all the things that he remembered about Steve and all the things that he had seen in Steve since he had come to the tower to live with him. It was hard to think of him as a monster who would hurt him, but he couldn’t keep from having those thoughts about Steve from time to time. Maybe he would start to trust him more. He wanted to.

In the days that followed their talk Bucky had started to see that Steve really did just want to make Bucky feel safe and happy. He didn’t do anything that could be construed as being meant to cause Bucky pain or fear. Bucky wanted to trust the feelings of safety that he was starting to feel more and more often. 

When they would watch TV Bucky would come over and sit with Steve leaning into his side and resting his head against Steve’s shoulder or laying his head on his lap. It was so bizarre to get the feelings of safety and caring from just leaning into Steve like that. 

His stomach had been doing much better. He would have a couple of episodes a day, but it wasn’t like it was before. He would just go to the bathroom and take his pills and go on about his life. He was eating all the things that Steve had said would be good for him and it was helping.

As much as he wanted to resent Steve for doing all these things like for him like he wasn’t able to take care of himself, but he was actually feeling pretty good for the first time in the months that he had been away from HYDRA. One of Bucky’s favorite things was that Steve would rub his stomach when it was sore. It was nice to have Steve put his warm hand over his stomach and let the heat soothe the cramps. Steve had always been so sweet and caring with him no matter what was going on. 

When Bucky would have a flashback Steve would do whatever Bucky wanted. They had even come up with hand signals for all sorts of things. They had a signal for I need space, and they had one for I need to be held, they had a I need to be reminded of where I am. They had one for I am sick, and I need you to just let me be sick and not push for any kind of info. They had one for I am having a hard time and I need you to stay with me and keep me from losing my shit, but not touch me. 

It was so good to be able to get what he needed without having to say it out loud. Bucky was really surprised how even though he couldn’t bring himself to say much of anything he wanted or needed when he was upset, he could give the hand signals with little to no issue. He had to be so lost in his head to not be able to make the hand gestures for what he needed. It also seemed that the more they were coexisting the more Steve was able to tell what Bucky needed even when he couldn’t even make the hand signals for what he wanted or needed. 

Steve was shocked at how snugly Bucky had become after he had started to allow himself to be touched by Steve, he was constantly sitting on the couch and leaning up against Steve. Almost every time they watched a movie or just sat and read in the same room Bucky would lay with his head in Steve’s lap and let him play with his hair. He could even manage to fall asleep in the living room when Steve played with his hair.

Steve had gotten this really odd couch that had like twenty different parts that you could move in all kinds of ways. It could be set up like a big bed or lots of other setups. It was most often in the big bed set up. It was easy for Bucky to lay down and have Steve just put his hand on him. 

The more that Steve touched Bucky the harder it became to hide that he was getting aroused more and more. It was one thing when Bucky spent so much of his time hiding and or in tears, but now that Bucky was seeming to be better, he was having a hard time not getting aroused. He always had his hands on Bucky and that was making Steve go crazy with lust. He would have to excuse himself at least twice a day to go jack off in the bathroom so he wasn’t popping a hard on in front of Bucky. 

The first time he actually almost kissed Bucky; they were on the couch and Bucky had his head in Steve’s lap and his head was actually touching Steve’s cock. He was trying so hard not to get hard but it was killing him to not spring a boner. He wanted to just bend down and kiss Bucky even if it was just on his forehead. 

He managed to get up and go to his room to jack off without Bucky seeing or if he did see he didn’t comment on Steve’s hard cock. He wanted to have what they had before. He missed the sexual intimacy they had before Bucky fell from that train. Everytime he got hard he wondered if he should go get laid. He didn’t know if it would be easier if he was getting laid at least sometimes. 

He didn’t want to disrespect Bucky, but he didn’t think Bucky would do well if Steve just started popping wood in front of him all the time, and things were really going quite well between them, and he didn’t want to ruin it. 

Bucky had seen Steve get hard a few times. He didn’t know what to do with that the first few times he had seen it, but Steve had never done anything that wasn’t proper so Bucky was trying not to let it freak him out. Steve had been so good to him. He had never done anything that would lead Bucky to believe that he would do anything inappropriate, but when Bucky would have a panic attack, nightmare, or flashback it was hard to remember that he could trust Steve; luckily Steve never got hard when Bucky was upset so he didn't have to actually see it when he was like that, but it was still shocking to see at any time.

Bucky could remember the times that he and Steve had been intimate. It was hard to think about them now. It always led to him thinking about other times that he’d had sex that wasn’t like the sex that Steve and him had all those years ago, and even if he managed to not start thinking about HYDRA he would start to get aroused that that was hard for him too. He didn’t know what to do when he was hard. He couldn’t touch himself that lesson was too well taught to be ignored. He still got hard sometimes and then he would start to panic and that killed any arousal he had.

Bucky wondered if he would ever be able to have sex again. He couldn’t even bear to jack off. He had tried once when he woke up from a dream and was hard, but he didn’t make it more than a few strokes before he had a panic attack and had to stop and run to the bathroom to be sick. 

Bucky wondered if it was Steve touching him if he would be okay with the sex. He didn’t know if he wanted to be penetrated, but he didn’t think he could get it up and keep it up to fuck Steve either and those were the options so he didn’t really think about having sex with Steve. 

He did want to see if he could even kiss Steve. He wanted to try to have sex. He knew that Steve wanted it, but he didn’t know if he could do handle it. The more he saw Steve get hard and then have to run to his room, presumably to jack off the more he wanted to try. He decided that he should try and talk to Steve about wanting to try kissing at least. 

The next morning when Bucky came into the kitchen, he took a deep breath as he sat down at the table and watched Steve cook. “I want to talk to you about something.” Bucky said, doing his best not to freak out. 

“Sure.” Steve said, looking over his shoulder. “What do you want to talk about?” Steve asked. This was the first time that Bucky had asked to talk about anything, so he thought he should step lightly. 

“I want to try something with you.” Bucky said, looking like he was about to run away. Bucky could feel his stomach starting to churn as he spoke. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get it out before he needed to run to the bathroom. Bucky wasn’t sure why he was even bothering to try this if just talking about, it was so upsetting to him. 

“What did you want to try?” Steve asked. 

“I want. I want. I want to kiss you.” Bucky spit out and jumped up and ran to his room. Bucky knew bolting was the wrong thing to do to prove to Steve that he actually wanted this, but it was just too much. He could just feel his stomach start to cramp and he knew he was going to be sick. 

I’m so fucked up, was the only thing he kept thinking on a continuous loop, as he sat on the bed and tried not to let himself freak out. After about five minutes he jumped up and ran to the bathroom and managed to get to the toilet before he got sick, but it was close. He hadn’t been that sick in almost two weeks. He just kept thinking how stupid he was to even be thinking he could have sex with Steve if he couldn't even talk to Steve about kissing without having to run to the bathroom before he shit himself. 

That hadn’t been the conversation that Steve thought they were going to have. He had wondered if Bucky had seen his hard cock one of the numerous times that he had gotten hard in front of Bucky, but Steve never dreamed that Bucky would want to try to do anything sexual ever again. Then he started to wonder if this was what Bucky wanted, or if he thought that he had to do it just because he thought that Steve wanted to have sex. It was clear that talking about it had greatly upset Bucky, but Steve wanted to think that Bucky was capable of making his own decisions and doing what was best for himself, and not blindly doing what he thought Steve wanted.

Steve wanted to talk to him more about it, but he wanted to make sure that Bucky didn’t feel like he had to do have sex with him because he thought that was what Steve wanted, nor did he want to make Bucky feel like he didn’t trust Bucky to make his own choices. He would have to be careful in how he approached the topic with Bucky, he thought as he finished cooking breakfast. 

Steve had long since learned that when Bucky needed space or got sick and had to bolt, he wanted Steve to just do what he was doing and he would come back out when he felt better or when he was calmed down unless he wanted Steve to comfort him in someway, then he would give the signal for JARVIS to alert Steve to his needs. 

Bucky stayed in his room for most of the morning. It wasn’t that he couldn’t face Steve it was that his stomach wouldn’t let him get more than ten feet from the bathroom. It would finally stop for a few minutes and he would be able to get himself cleaned up, and start back to the bed and get to lay down for no more than five or ten minutes before he would have to run back to the bathroom to shit again.

Bucky had been in tears from the second trip to the bathroom, and had barely even been able to wipe himself even with the wet wipes after the sixth trip to the bathroom. Steve must have been getting updates from JARVIS because as soon as he was in the bedroom Steve would come in with that sports drink stuff and a popsicle, and the Imodium.

Steve was so worried about Bucky. He could hear the sounds that Bucky was making through the wall as Bucky shit. He just kept sobbing and making a noise that made Steve think he was hiding his face in a towel and screaming, or he would simply yelp. After every trip to the bathroom Steve would ask if Bucky wanted some diaper rash cream help soothe his burning anus. Bucky said no the first five times, but after the sixth trip to the bathroom, when he could hardly get himself clean, he finally said yes to Steve’s suggestions. 

Bucky thought that Steve must have been able to hear him screaming while he was cleaning up because he wasn’t really willing to let Bucky say no this time, as much as Bucky didn’t want to have to put the stuff on he was in so much pain he was willing to try just about anything if it would make him feel better.

“Do you want the cream Buck. It will help make you hurt less. I know you are hurting.” Steve said, looking like he was about to start begging Bucky to at least try it if he said no again. 

“Yes.” Was all Bucky said.

Steve squeezed the cream on to Bucky’s hand, and as soon as Bucky’s hand made contact with his is anus, he just screamed and then snatched his hand away. 

“You have to do it Buck. You are so raw back there. I know it hurts, but you have to put it on, it will help.” Steve begged. 

“You do it.” Bucky said, sobs wracking his body as he told Steve to put it on for him, he didn’t think that he would be able to let Steve do it either, but he couldn’t do it so he was going to try to let Steve put on for him. 

Steve sat on the bed so he was sitting in front of Bucky who was curled up on his side clutching his stomach. Steve ran his hand up and down Bucky’s back trying in vain to soothe him as best he was able. Steve puts the cream on his fingers and then as carefully as he could, he rub it on Bucky’s hole. Bucky buried his face in Steve’s lap and screamed. It took everything Bucky had not to attack Steve for hurting him. He knew that Steve was doing everything in his power to make him feel better, but it still hurt and the pain made Bucky want to lash out at Steve. It wasn’t another five minutes before Bucky was running back to the bathroom. Steve tried to give Bucky as much privacy as he could, but Bucky was wailing and screaming almost constantly by then, and Steve was pretty sure that everyone on at least the floor above and below could hear Bucky’s screams of anguish. 

When he finished that round Bucky was unable to wipe himself at all. As soon as he tried to get himself cleaned up he started to have a flashback. Before he was completely gone in his head he managed to ask Steve to come in the bathroom. The site that greeted Steve was heartbreaking. Bucky sitting on the toilet red faced and blubbering a towel in his mouth, screaming into the towel as he tried to wipe himself. Steve just walked over to Bucky and wrapped his arms around him in a hug, and reached behind him doing his best to clean his hole. Bucky just let's Steve clean him, desperately clinging to Steve like that would make him feel better. He was really unable to do anything but sob and whimper while Steve got him cleaned up. 

Steve carried him to the bed and laid him down applying more cream to his raw and bleeding hole. It was like that for the next 4 trips to the bathroom. By the last trip Bucky didn’t even try to get up he just started to sob harder and Steve lifted him and carried him to the bathroom, Steve wasn’t even leaving the room anymore just standing and holding Bucky while he screamed and sobbed as he shit. 

When Bucky was done for the last time, Bucky had taken one hundred and twenty eight pills, and Bucky was pretty sure he would have to go back at some point in the next few hours. His guts were still churning and cramping. He just wasn’t shitting anymore even if his body felt like it was on the verge of exploding again. Bucky was terrified to leave the bathroom. He felt like he had to go but he just couldn’t get anything to come out.   
He didn’t know what was worse the shitting or feeling like you were going to shit himself the moment he got to the bed and not be able to just shit and get it out, regardless it was bad. Maybe it was the weeks of only getting sick once or twice a day if that, that had made this time so much worse for Bucky.

Steve stayed in the room with Bucky just rubbing his back and trying to make him feel better. It wasn’t really helping, but at least he was trying. He was afraid that Bucky would need to go again and not have the strength to get up and get to the bathroom. Steve sat with Bucky for most of the day, bringing him drinks and popsicles periodically, but mostly just sitting and rubbing Bucky’s back or leaving his warm hand on Bucky’s tender abdomen. 

After about five hours of Bucky dozing and Steve reading. Bucky started to stir. He was moving and it seemed like he was trying to get comfortable but it didn’t seem like he was able to find a spot that wasn’t hurting him. Steve just kept his hand on Bucky’s abdomen trying to help easy his obvious discomfort. Finally Bucky woke up fully and did his best to make his way to the bathroom, but it was clear that he was having a hard time keeping upright and Steve went to help him.

This trip to the bathroom was just as painful and awful as the others had been but for an entirely different reason. Bucky had rushed to the bathroom because he was sure he was going to have yet more diarrhea, but that’s not what happened. Bucky sat there feeling like he was going to gush sick everywere, but nothing happened just horrible cramps and a sense of urgency that wouldn’t go away. He wanted to shit as much as he didn’t want to, the feeling like he was going to be sick and nothing happening was terrible. He just wanted to feel better. After an hour or so of sitting on the toilet feeling like any moment he was going to be violently sick Bucky gave up and went back to the bed where steve was sitting with yet more of the drink. 

Steve was shocked at how bad Bucky still looked. His face was ashen and wet. He looked like he hurt everywhere. Steve was wondering if there was anything he could do to help Bucky. Bucky just shambled over to the bed and laid down. Facing the wall away from Steve and curling in on himself. He looked like he was hurting. “Can I do anything for you Buck?” Steve asked.

“I don’t need you playing nurse maid. Get out!” Bucky said, trying and failing to keep the venom out of his words. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that he had been so sick or that Steve had to help to and from the bathroom or to help him clean himself. But now that he was at least able to move on his own he wanted Steve to get away from him. He knew that it would hurt Steve’s feelings to be brushed off like that but it was still what he wanted. 

Steve tried not to let the words hurt him but they did. He was just trying to help and that’s not what Bucky wanted but he would respect his wishes and leave Bucky alone. He just hoped that Bucky would be feeling better in the morning. 

Bucky spent the rest of the night being yanked out of his sleep to run to the bathroom with that horrible sense of urgency, but he hadn’t shit at all. His abdomen was so sore but he had managed to get his anus to heal up and at least that wasn’t hurting. In the morning he got up and went to have breakfast with Steve. Steve looked like a kicked puppy but he was pleasant and kind to him. It was hard for Bucky to know that he had hurt his friend when Steve was just trying to make him feel better. 

“Can we watch a movie, and will you do that thing where you just keep your hand on my stomach, it’s still really tender and that always helps it feel better? Bucky asked, looking up at Steve as he spoke, as soon as he said it Steve gave him that megawatt smile and Bucky knew he had said the right thing. 

Steve knew that watching a movie was code for I want to nap and still have you touch me but he was okay with Bucky not being able to say that at least he wasn’t hiding in his room and being sick, so Steve would take the win for what it was a win.


	20. Chapter 20

Over the next few days, Bucky seemed to be much more physically affectionate. He would touch the small of Steve’s back when he reached for the teapot in the mornings. He would sit closer and let his hand brush against Steve’s cock as he moved to get more comfortable. Neither of them brought up the idea of kissing since they talked about it the first time, but it was evident to Steve Bucky wasn't going to drop it no matter the outcome to himself. The more Bucky casually touched Steve the harder it became not to get hard all the time. It was killing Steve. 

Bucky would lean into him as they were working out pressing his full body up behind Steve’s body as he spotted him on the weights. Steve felt like he was permanently hard now. He wanted Bucky to knock it off or reach around and do something; Steve didn’t want to freak Bucky out. Steve thought Bucky might feel differently about the sexual tension if he wasn’t the one in control of them, so Steve lets Bucky do what he wanted. Steve was going to have to punch Bucky if ground his cock up against his ass one more time while they were working out. 

 

Bucky was beyond furious with Steve. Bucky wanted to try kissing Steve try to be sexual. Bucky was so incredibly horny he missed sex, for seventy years sex was a constant in his life, and it was brutal and awful, and it was meant to make him scream in pain, but sex with Steve would be different maybe he could reclaim his sexuality.

Bucky knew the conversation they had was an epic failure, but he wanted to feel like Steve trusted him to make choices, and Steve was being beyond bullheaded about not reacting to his come-ons.

Finally, Bucky had enough, as he was moving around with his head in Steve’s lap and leaned up and kissed Steve. It was chaste and like you would kiss your cousin, but it was more physical affection than Steve had in 70 years, and Bucky hadn’t had sex in seventy years, he'd been raped for the last seventy years there was a huge difference. No one at Hydra had ever kissed him, they all had the sense not to let him get his mouth on them. 

As soon as he kissed Steve, he wanted to freak out and run away, but Steve didn’t deepen the kiss, didn’t push any boundaries he allowed Bucky kiss him. Bucky didn’t want Steve to think it was too much for him even if it almost was. He didn’t want to give Steve a reason not to do it again. Bucky was terrified, didn’t mean he didn’t want to do it again. After a couple of minutes, he rolled back over and hit play on the TV and whatever movie had been playing last started again. Bucky was as pleased with himself. 

Over the next week, their touches became more pointed, but Steve always let Bucky make the first move. Bucky now kissed Steve like a lover. He would use his tongue and open his mouth deeply and allow Steve to explore. Bucky would run his hands over Steve’s body as they kiss. Bucky hadn't worked up the courage to go into Steve’s room or allow Steve in his room for the purpose of kissing, but the couch was big, and there was room for them to stretch out and get comfortable and kiss there. It was like they were teenagers again, necking in the parking lot or the movies. 

They would stay clothed and ran hands over one another's chests, but it was far more sexual than Bucky thought he would ever be again. Every once in awhile Bucky would start to panic and pull back but Steve was always very careful when the panic set in; Steve would stay completely still and talk to Bucky reminding him it was Steve and not something wrong. 

Once in while Bucky would jump up and rush out of the room, but Bucky getting upset was becoming almost nonexistent after a few make out sessions. It was nice. Their days seemed to be very much routine get up have breakfast go to the gym come back have lunch make out and have dinner watch a movie or read and go to bed. 

Bucky hadn’t been sick since they had talked about kissing. It was hard to believe it had been almost a week and nothing. But it had been nothing. No movement at all, and if he was honest with himself, it was starting to worry him. He didn't feel bad. But it was odd. 

Maybe he didn’t need to shit as much as he did before the serum, it’s not like he had a frame of reference, he had either been fed liquid or been shitting his brains out for his whole time with HYDRA. He didn’t eat nearly as much as Steve maybe he was using most of what he was taking in, he didn’t know. He figured as long as he wasn’t hurting it was nothing to worry about. 

The kissing had gotten more intense; they would lay on the couch and kiss for a long time. Bucky knew Steve would go to his room and jack off as soon as they stopped kissing. Bucky wanted to move past what they had already done; he wanted to try doing more. Bucky wanted to try something else, he didn’t know what something else was, but he wanted to try. 

They had come of age in the days before the internet Bucky had never seen a blue movie or even been to an adult store, but he knew there had to be more than sex, blow jobs and hand jobs. 

Bucky was pretty sure he wouldn’t ever be able to give Steve a blow job, HYDRA had always wanted him to blow them and think about the smell and taste was enough to get him worked up and ready to panic. Bucky still wanted to try to give Steve the release he would hide in his room to get. 

Steve had been very careful to keep the touching over clothes and above the waist. He didn’t know how Bucky would handle anything even hinting at sodomy, Bucky seemed to be doing okay with the kissing, but Steve thought trying to touch Bucky’s ass or trying to feel his cock would be too much for him, so he kept his hands to Bucky’s back and chest. 

Bucky was frustrated Steve only touched him over his clothes, and above the waist. Bucky didn’t think he could ask for more, but he was still desperate to give Steve the release Steve hid from him. 

“Take your shirt off.” Bucky hissed one day while they were kissing on the couch. 

“Are you sure?’ Steve said not thinking before he spoke. 

“Yes, I am sure.” Bucky barked, trying to remember Steve was trying to help and not to piss him off. He wanted Steve to trust him to know what he could and couldn't handle. 

Steve peeled his shirt off looking at Bucky as he did. Bucky thought the anger was making him bolder, and he liked it. Bucky wanted to do this, and he wasn’t going to panic. He was going to prove Steve wrong about him being able to handle things like this. He was strong enough for this; he had to show it to Steve he wasn't made of glass and going to break. 

“What do you want to do?” Steve wanted to trust Bucky, but this could be bad, and it could set Bucky back so much. Steve didn’t want to lose the progress they made over the past week or so. 

“I want to do more than a kiss,” Bucky said, sure Bucky was more practiced than even the best of whores, but he didn’t know what he liked. Him liking it was never anyone's goal, and there wasn’t the internet when they were kids. He was sure there were so much more than what they did before he fell, Bucky thought some of the things HYDRA did might be kind of enjoyable with Steve. He didn't know what the names or how to ask Steve to do them. 

Steve saw Bucky getting more and more worked up trying to decide what he wanted. “Do you want me to give you a blow job?” Steve couldn't imagine anyone wanting to get Bucky off so he thought it would be a safe choice. 

“No. I hate being sucked off.” Bucky spat. 

Steve didn’t think this was going to end well. Bucky was starting to look more and more like The Soldier with every word. Steve knew he needed to get things back on track before Bucky freaked out or attacked him or both. 

“How about you take your shirt off and I give you a back rub, and we see where it takes us?" 

“Okay,” Bucky said, sounding much more like himself, nervous but like himself. Bucky took off his shirt and then flipped over on the couch. Steve climbed around, so he was sitting on the side of Bucky, not letting his body make contact with Bucky below the waist. Steve knew they would get there but he needed to make this enjoyable, and get Bucky to relax if they were going to get anywhere other than a freaked out Bucky and possibly a broken-nosed Steve. 

Steve rubbed Bucky’s back in long fluid strokes; he was trying to get Bucky to relax more than trying to get the knots out. Bucky’s back felt like steel as he ran his hands up and down his back. It took Steve about 45 minutes to get Bucky to relax into his fingers and stop holding his muscles taut.

Bucky was shocked he was enjoying the message. It was nice. It was about an hour into the message when Bucky realized he was hard. He had woken up hard a few times, but he had never gotten hard when he was awake not even with all the making out Steve, and he had done over the past week.

Bucky didn't know what to do. He wanted to try and do more, this was already so much farther than he thought he would get, but he wanted more, he wanted to see if he could get off. Bucky moaned and ever so slightly as he rubbed his cock against the couch. 

“Stevie.”

“What?” Steve purred leaning into his ear so his breath would tickle as he spoke. 

“More Stevie. I need more.” Bucky said voice rough and breathy. 

Steve leaned into Bucky’s ear again. “You want to fuck my ass, Buck?”

Bucky stilled his hard on starting to soften as soon as Steve mentioned Bucky fucking him. “No, I don't think I can keep it up to fuck you,” Bucky said bashfully. 

“Okay Buck,” Steve said rubbing his back as if nothing had happened.

“I have an idea. Do you think you can trust me to make all the decisions? I promise I won’t hurt you okay.” Steve said, a plan forming in his mind. 

“I will try,” Bucky said, trying to will himself not to panic as he thought about all the ways Steve could hurt him.

“I am going to tell you what I am about to do right before I do it, but not the whole plan. You can use your hand signals if you need me to stop.” Steve said, never stopping his rubbing as he spoke. 

“I’m going to go get something from the room,” Steve said getting off the couch and walking to his room. Steve grabbed the bottle of lube and walked back to the living room getting back on the sofa and moving Bucky’s legs apart so he could get between them, and leaned to reach the top of Bucky’s back letting his chest and rub Bucky’s back and ass as he massaged.

Bucky could feel the panic rising in him as he felt Steve’s weight rest on him, but then the weight was gone, and then back again. Steve kept working the knots out of Bucky’s back his weight resting on Bucky and then removed until Bucky started to relax again. It didn’t take nearly as long this time for Bucky to relax again. 

After about 15 minutes Bucky was relaxed again, and pretty soon Bucky was moaning and wiggling like he was hard. Steve smiled pleased with himself as Bucky rubbed his cock on the couch whimpering as he did.

“I’m going to pull down your pants; I promise I’m not going to put anything inside you. I am going to touch anus, but I swear to God I’m not going to put anything inside you.” Steve said, trying to hide his worry. 

“Okay,” Bucky said, sounding and feeling like he was going to panic any moment. 

Steve would have loved to drag out stripping Bucky to get to enjoy seeing him naked. Sure he had seen Bucky naked even touched Bucky naked, but only when Bucky was sick and in tears not when it was about sex, but Steve knew he needed to be efficient about it and get Bucky back to his relaxed state. Steve hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Bucky’s gym shorts and slid them down and off Bucky’s feet. 

As soon as Steve had his shorts off, he went back rubbing Bucky’s back and letting his chest touch Bucky as he did. This time it didn’t take Bucky more than a couple of minutes to be back to moaning in pleasure and rubbing on the couch. When Steve was sure Bucky was hard again, he scooted forward a little bit so when he stretched up to reach Bucky’s shoulders; he let his hard cock touch Bucky’s ass. As soon as his cock touched Bucky’s ass every muscle in Bucky’s body was rock hard, and his breath hitched, Steve held fast and kept up his rubbing letting his hard cock touch Bucky’s ass. 

It took almost 45 minutes for Bucky to calm down enough for his hard on to come back but Steve was patient. He wanted Bucky to be able to enjoy this and if Bucky wasn’t giving the stop signal than Steve was going to pretend everything was okay and keep going until Bucky told him to stop or calmed down and enjoyed what he was doing. 

Steve slid, so he was sitting in between Bucky’s knees and started to focus his rubbing on the small of Bucky’s back above his ass. Bucky didn’t even really get tense this time. Steve slid a little closer to Bucky’s ass with every rub until he was rubbing the top of Bucky’s ass. Steve had wanted the first thing they did other than kissing to be something HYDRA hadn't done to him. He couldn’t imagine anyone at HYDRA giving Bucky a rim job, so Steve decided a rim job was a good plan for their first sexual encounter. 

“Buck I am going to lick you. Are you okay?” Steve asked sounding horny and breathless. 

“I am not sure. I might need you to stop, and I might need to go to my room, but I will try.” Bucky said, sounding scared. 

He thought this would go one of two ways beyond well or Bucky freaking out in epic proportions. Steve got his face right behind Bucky’s ass close enough his breath was tickling his asshole as he sat there. Steve took each of Bucky’s cheeks in one of his hands and pulled them apart shoving his face in Bucky’s ass as soon as there was room to get his face in there. He wanted to get Bucky’s mind off his hand and on his tongue as fast as possible. 

Bucky started to breathe harshly half in a panic half in hornyness. It doesn't take long before Bucky is grinding his hips back into Steve’s face with every lap of his tongue. Steve smiles to himself as he keeps his tongue moving on his asshole. 

Bucky moaned as Steve ran his tongue in circles around his hole, then Steve started to run it up and down his crack and down to the back of his balls and then back to his hole. Steve had been lavishing his asshole with his attention for about ten minutes when Bucky came with a deep moan. Steve kept working his tongue on Bucky's over sensitive hole helping Bucky through his orgasm. 

Bucky didn’t know anything could feel so good and especially not there. He couldn’t believe how much he had liked it, and he had cum, and he didn't want to throw up. Bucky was so happy he wasn’t as broken as he thought he was. Bucky couldn't move he laid there bonelessly enjoying the way it felt to be so relaxed hoping Steve would lay by him. He couldn’t help but smile. 

Bucky gave Steve the all clear sign and was pleased when Steve curled up on the huge comfy couch beside him hugging him to him as they laid there basking in the afterglow of his orgasm.

The next day Bucky and Steve made out again, and this time Bucky was the one to initiate his being naked. It went much the same was as the day before had. Steve stayed clothed through the whole thing. It didn’t take nearly as long for Bucky to relax enough to start pushing his ass up in the air hinting at what he wanted from Steve. Steve couldn’t be happier to oblige Bucky with his tongue. When Bucky came though he rolled over and looked at Steve kneeling there on the couch, his rock hard cock looking like it had to be hurting with the way it was pushing at his workout shorts. 

Bucky wanted to move over and push Steve back on his back and take his length into his mouth and suck him off, but as he started to think about it, he started to panic. Bucky scooted back on the couch so he was as far from Steve as he could get without getting up. “Take off your shirt,” Bucky said, trying not to show how close he was to losing it as he spoke. 

Steve all but ripped his shirt in his haste to get it off his head. If he had been thinking with his big head, he would have tried to be less imposing, but he was far too horny for higher brain function. 

It took Bucky at least 5 minutes to get up the courage for the next part. “Take off your pants. I want to see your cock.” and this time his voice did break. Bucky was scared not only to be in the same room with a naked hard man, but Steve’s cock was massive. “Jack your cock,” Bucky whispered at Steve as he sat there watching Steve’s huge cock. 

Steve felt like a 12-year-old it only took him 10 or 12 strokes before he sprayed cum all over the couch. At this rate, they were going to have to replace it soon, but that was okay by Steve. Bucky looked scared shitless, but he didn’t move, so Steve figured he was okay. Bucky wasn’t beyond using his hand signals so Steve had faith if he needed this to stop he could make it stop and Steve wanted to show he trusted Bucky to make decisions about his body.

Steve was proud of him. As soon as Steve could think clearly, he tossed Bucky his shorts and got his own on, before he grabbed them some water and some fruit salad. Steve wanted to give Buck a second to get himself together. When he got back, Bucky seemed much calmer. The rest of the night was spent sitting on the couch watching TV and touching each other. 

Over the next week the make out sessions continued, it didn't take Steve nearly as long to get Bucky to relax, and to cum from the rim jobs. The amount of participation Bucky was putting into Steve’s getting off was becoming more and more. 

Bucky had always hated the talking when he was the one getting fucked, but he found out every quickly he loved to tell Steve how to grab and stroke his cock, Bucky never degraded him or called him names or made him hurt himself. Bucky said things Steve liked hearing he wanted Steve to cum and enjoy what they were doing not dread it as Bucky did with HYDRA. He still couldn’t bring himself to touch Steve’s cock, but he was getting bolder when it came to his instructing Steve as to what to do.

Steve and Bucky had kept their rim job jack off sessions for about a week when Bucky decided to try for more. 

“Steve, can we talk?” Bucky asked one day while they were on the couch. 

“Yeah,” 

“I want to do more stuff with you,” Bucky said, panic rising in him as he spoke, but he wanted this even if it scared him. He was going to have this conversation, and he wasn’t going to lose it this time. He thought determinately. 

Steve tried to make his voice reasonable as he spoke. “What did you want to do Buck?” Steve asked. 

“I want to do more, maybe touch you while you jack off. I don’t think I can stroke it, but I could maybe touch you, maybe play with your nipples, I think I remember you liked when they were played with.” 

Steve sat listening to Bucky talk and tried to figure out what to say; Steve thought if he said the wrong thing Bucky might cry and Steve didn't want this to go badly. 

“I would love you touching me in any way, Buck.” Was all Steve had said before he hugged him. 

When they fooled around Bucky was much bolder as he lay whimpering in pleasure under Steve’s tongue. “Put your tongue in me, Stevie. Fuck me with your tongue.” Bucky said, breathlessly and lust blown. 

Steve was shocked and thought he misheard Bucky. “What was that?” he asked his face still buried in Bucky’s ass. 

“Fuck my ass with your tongue. Now!” Bucky huffed reaching around to shove Steve’s head harder into his asshole as he whimpered in pleasure and came harder than he ever had before.

When Steve jerked off, Bucky sucked on his nipple and managed to touch his cock for a few strokes before he had to move his hand back to the safety of Steve’s chest, but he had done it and even enjoyed it.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shameless smut. Enjoy.

Over the next few days, Steve and Bucky’s fooling around had become more intense, ever since Steve had tongue fucked him for the first time Bucky wanted nothing more than to have Steve shove his tongue up his ass. Bucky thought even after Steve had penetrated him he would panic over it, but he didn't seem to get upset. He loved the way it felt to have Steve lavishing his hole with such attention even if the attention was penetrating him. 

Bucky could now go from kissing to the rim job without the pretense of the back rub. Bucky had gotten bold enough to start letting Steve use his tongue in other ways. He liked it when Steve would nibble and lick his neck and breath on his ear. 

Bucky had found there were quite a few things upset him. Steve tried to run his fingers through his hair while he was nibbling at his neck and it had left Bucky panicky and nauseous for hours after but Steve had respected Bucky's hand signals and done his best to calm Bucky afterward. Sometimes the things Bucky liked would upset him but he wasn't getting nearly as off balance, and the panic didn't last nearly as long as it had in the beginning. 

Bucky could also now curl up and let his whole naked body touch Steve while Steve jacked off. Bucky could also manage to play with Steve’s cock for a good minute or two before he had to pull back. Bucky was enjoying not only his orgasm, but he enjoyed watching and helping Steve achieve his own. Bucky was proud of himself for the first time in seventy years, and from all the times a day, Bucky said he was proud of him Bucky was starting to believe that Steve was proud of him. 

They had been laying on the couch naked and kissed for awhile when Bucky pulled back. In the beginning, Steve would become anxious when Bucky pulled away for fear Bucky would run to his room and have a panic attack, both had happened a few times, but Steve was getting better at reading Bucky and knew now he was nervous but not nearly worried enough to bolt. 

“I want to get you off first,” Bucky said an anxious edge to his voice.

“Really,” Steve said trying not to sound like an eager puppy at the prospect of getting off first. Steve enjoyed getting Bucky off, but sometimes Bucky needed the back rub and the time to relax, and Steve was far too accustomed to getting off in this way which meant he would be hard long enough to be painful before he got off. 

Bucky had learned he loved to be in control of Steve's orgasm; Bucky secretly wanted to tell Steve he wasn't allowed to cum after he had ordered Steve to jack off. But no matter how turned on he was over telling Steve exactly what to do he normally was all blissed out and sated when Steve started touching himself, and he wasn’t too mentally functional. Today he was firing on all eight cylinders, Bucky worried in his non-post orgasmic haze this would be too much for him to handle, but he wanted to try. 

“Lean back, so you are leaning on the arm rest.” Bucky directed from his almost fetal position on the other end of the couch. 

Steve could tell Bucky wasn't as relaxed as he normally was. Bucky hadn’t hidden at the other end of the couch like this since the beginning of their fooling around, but Steve was trusting him.

Bucky took a deep breath and sat up a little bit more still not uncurling but relaxing ever so slightly. "Play with your nipples," Bucky commanded.

Steve nearly jumped in his haste to squeeze his nipples. There had never a power dynamic in their sex before, and Steve had never been unhappy, but now Steve had seen what it was like to be bossed around in bed and he couldn't get enough. Steve didn't think Bucky could handle not being in control during sex; Steve didn't believe it was just because of what HYDRA had done, a part of Bucky was always bossy and demanding. Now Bucky would always need this level of control and Steve was an eager puppy when it came to following Steve's every wish and command. 

Bucky licked his lip nibbling at it slightly as he watched Steve run his strong fingers around his nipples and pinch them ever so slightly. "Good job Stevie," Bucky breathed. Bucky was shocked at how much Steve loved to be praised, he had seen it when he was all blissed out and post-orgasmic, but like this fully functional he could see how much Steve swelled up with the praise. Bucky made a mental note to slip in more praise both during sexy times and not during sexy times. 

Steve's cock got even harder when Bucky told him he was good. Steve didn't understand what about that sentence was so hot, but something about it was intoxicating. He needed to do more to make Bucky tell him he was a good boy. 

"Slide your hand down your chest and over your cock but don't jack your cock just run your hand over it."

Steve felt like he was about to cum just from Bucky telling him what to do in such detail. Steve was trying so hard not to grab his cock and jack himself off. He didn't think Bucky would panic or even punish him, but he knew if he did disobey Bucky in such a blatant way that Bucky wouldn't say those magic words of how proud he was of him. 

Bucky felt himself get hard as he watched Steve try with all his might not to wrap his hand around his cock and finish himself. "You may stroke your cock but only five times."

Steve grabbed his cock and pulled quickly it only took three strokes until he has shot his load all over his stomach and chest. 

Bucky purred and licked his lips again as he watched Steve stroke himself through his orgasm. "Good Boy Stevie."

Steve all but purred when Bucky said the magic words to him.

Bucky couldn't wait any longer he had to cum now! Bucky wished he could just stroke his cock and get himself off but as soon as he thought about grabbing his cock his stomach started to roll. Bucky couldn't understand why it didn't upset him when Steve made him cum but the thought of doing it himself was enough to lose his erection. 

Bucky flipped onto his stomach ass aiming at Steve who was still not tracking what was going on. "Steven Grant Rogers get your tongue IN MY ASS NOW!" Bucky demanded wiggling his ass in the air as he spoke. Bucky didn't know he could be that forceful, but he was saying it before he had a chance to think. 

Steve jumped and rushed to do what Bucky had ordered; he had his face buried in Bucky's ass before he registered his movement, tongue running over Bucky's hole poking at it gently fingers digging into Bucky's hips as he did. 

"I SAID IN ROGERS! I need your tongue shoved up my ass right FUCKING NOW!" 

At that Steve shoved his tongue in as far as it would go hands pulling Bucky's ass apart to try and get in deeper. 

"Deeper Rogers," Bucky moaned.

Steve tried, but he didn't have anymore tongue. "Need more tongue," Steve mumbled into Bucky's asshole.

"Quit making excusing and go deeper."

Steve pulled his face away and shoved two strong fingers into Bucky in one go. Had Steve been thinking and not about to cum once again at the rush he was getting at the orders he was getting from Bucky, but he was far to lost in his horny haze to think. Luckily Bucky was so lost in his lust to panic at having Steve's fingers probing his hole. 

Steve leaned up and began nibbling on Bucky's neck as he pounded away at Bucky's pulsing hole. Bucky moaned and trembled under Steve's talented fingers. 

As Steve hit his prostrate for the first time Bucky reached back and snatched at Steve's hair hissing for Steve to not stop until he came harder than he ever had before. 

Somewhere in the back of Bucky's mind, he understood that Steve was using something other than his tongue and part of Bucky wanted to shriek and run away. But he was so horny and blissed out he just snatched harder at Steve's hair making sure he pulled hard enough to hurt him and when Steve did nothing but pant harder and whimpered with what Bucky was sure was both pain and sheer bliss he was able to relax and enjoy what Steve was doing. 

As Steve gasped and whimpered in Bucky's ear, Bucky came with an all-encompassing pleasure. As Bucky came down from his haze, he started to dwell on what had just happened. He managed to stay calm enough to slowly pull away but not run to his room he needed to get Steve's fingers out of him and get some distance. He needed to stop Steve from touching him, but he wasn't to the point of needed a door and lock between them.

As Bucky pulled away, Steve started to panic and worry he had done something unforgivable, but Steve had learned early on if Bucky didn't run away or indeed panic he needed to remain calm and let whatever was going on in Bucky's head play out, or things would just devolve. 

Bucky pulled away and snatched the blanket over his naked body but looking at the worried look on Steve's face he knew somewhere deep in his mind Steve would do nothing to hurt him and was a heartbeat away from having his anxiety attack. Bucky focused on doing whatever he could to keep Steve from breaking down and beating himself up for something that Bucky himself had demanded he does. Sure Bucky hadn't said shove your fingers in my ass, but he had ordered Steve to go deeper, and Steve always lost his higher brain function when he was horny. 

Bucky reminded himself that no matter how horny Steve had been he had managed to keep his composure enough not to fuck him. Steve had just been doing what he was told. Bucky kept repeating that sentence to himself as he watched Steve do his very best not to start crying and begging Bucky to forgive him. 

"Clothes," Bucky managed to whisper.

Steve leaped off the couch and grabbed his clothes and managed to get them on without actually falling over in his haste, he hadn't managed to get them on the right way, but he at least had a barrier over his cock. 

Bucky couldn't help keep the nearly hysterical laugh from bubbling up as he watched Steve wobble like a newborn calf. The laugh was too much, and almost as soon as the laugh was out, he was in tears. Steve stood as still as a corpse torn between taking Bucky in his arms and starting his regular anxiety attack protocols.

Bucky could see the way Steve was starting to lose his composure and knew any moment Steve would be kneeling on the floor just out of reach and begging Bucky to forgive him. 

Bucky gave the all clear and lifted the blanket the offer clear. Steve did his best not to run to Bucky no matter how much he wanted to lay on the couch with Bucky and make it all better. Steve stayed just far enough away from Bucky he wasn't touching but just barely. Bucky put his arm around his abdomen and jerked him tight against him mumbling stupid punk as he did. 

Steve grabbed Bucky's arm and clung to it as his tears came. 

They laid there clinging to each other for an hour or more before Bucky pushed Steve away. Steve's heart started to race as his panic once again rose in his chest. 

"Slow your roll homeboy." Bucky chided, "I have to pee."

Steve took a steadying breath and let Bucky up. Much to Steve's relief, Bucky was back in a heartbeat clothed and looking as calm as he ever did. 

"I'm so sorry Buck," Steve mumbled as Bucky walked back into the room. 

"Steve STOP. You did nothing wrong. You did what you were told to do. I wanted you to go deeper, and you did what I said. I'm not mad; I mostly scared myself."

"I should have paid better attention to you."

"Steve it wouldn't have been nearly as hot if you weren't so lust blown and gone in your passion."

Steve for the first time since they finished thought about just how gone in pleasure they both were and took a second to think back to how hot it had been. 

"It was hot. I just about came when you called me a good boy. I justed to hear you tell me I had done a good job. I guess I got carried away." 

"You were a great boy Stevie. I can't remember being as lost in passion since we were in our teens."

Steve smiled his big eager smile as he looked at him. Bucky couldn't help but love the stupid punk seeing how happy being told he was good had made him.


	22. Chapter 22

I wanted to give people who are reading my stories a heads up. I have been having a tough time with my depression. I have every intention of finishing my stories, but I am having a terrible time getting myself to write lately. I am doing good to get up shower and be at work on time, so writing isn't happening. I am trying to get to a place where I can write again, but as of right now I am putting all my works into hiatus. I am sorry. I am a reader, and I hate when my stories get put on hiatus so please believe I am writing this with a heavy heart I just can't get my shit together to write. 

I am sorry, and I will try to get back to writing ASAP

Thanks  
Sarah


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